The old adage "You can’t go home again" is not always true. Sometimes things get better. My introduction to beer came many years ago and involved drinking Coors out of quart bottles, obtained in various disreputable establishments in Salt Lake City and its surrounds. While I have no doubt that the majority of my readers foreswore anything except spring water and pure fruit juice until the recent home/micro-brewing revolution introduced truly superior malted beverages to the public, my pathway to enlightenment was somewhat more contorted and involved the consumption of liquids that make me blanch even now. As a youth growing up in Utah, my choices for beer were restricted to Coors, Bud, Miller, and Olympia. However, one can only truly appreciate where one is by knowing where one has been and I don’t doubt that my present state of zymolurgical grace is, to a large extent, a result of this rather rocky beginning.

During my recent return to the Valley of Zion for the holidays, I was very pleasantly surprised to find Salt Lake caught up in the microbrewery revolution in a big way. Upon my arrival, I found that my dad, having recognized my maturation as a beer aficionado, had stocked the refrigerator with Wasatch Brewing’s Christmas Ale (packaged in a very cool wooden 12-pack crate). Wasatch Brewing started out as a brewpub in Park City, but has expanded to include a microbrewery facility in Salt Lake City. Their Christmas Ale was very good. Having avoided the temptation to add spices, they have come up with a recipe that is perhaps best described as a dark version of Goose Island’s Honkers Ale. After downing the first of these, I recognized that the 12-pack in the refrigerator would probably not last out the holiday week and would need to be supplemented by additional beer procurements. Wasatch Brewing’s beer is ubiquitous in Salt Lake. It is available in most grocery stores and is on tap in many restaurants. In one evening out, I sampled Wasatch’s Hefeweizen and their Wasatch Ale. Both are respectable beers, the Hefeweizen is brewed with German yeast and, consequently, has the pleasant spiciness I would expect in a weizen. The Wasatch Ale, the company’s flagship beer, is surprisingly a full-bodied amber with some interesting smoked malt overtones to it.

Learning from my dad that a new brewpub, Hoppers, had recently opened up in Sandy, just south of the old homestead, I was intrigued by the thought of beer brewed in what once had been a cow pasture (in my youth). It was quickly agreed that this would be an immediate dinner destination. We arrived to find a substantial waiting list, gave the hostess our name, and proceeded to wait. The woman-I-travel-with saw that the Bulls game was being televised in the bar and bolted to watch. I dutifully followed to insure that no trouble erupted between her and the largely partisan Jazz crowd. Between appeasing the patrons after the-woman-I-travel-with’s exclamations of "MIICHHAAELLL" or "DENNNISSSS" I ordered a glass of the brown ale that was on hand-pump. As I was downing the brown ale, a fair example of an English brown, I noticed that the all of the beers the patrons around me were drinking were cloudy, disturbingly so. One group of revelers behind us were drinking something out of a pitcher that was reminiscent of grapefruit juice. When I asked a passing waitress what it was, she replied that it was their "orange honey wheat beer." "Gawd," I thought, "Are such things possible in a civilized society?" At this point, I noticed that the old man, who doesn’t get out much, had begun to harass the hostess over the length of our wait for a table. Fearing we were about to be fitted for a table out by the grease dumpster, I ordered a glass of the porter, admonished the woman-I-travel-with to behave herself, and headed back to the restaurant entrance. I attempted to distract the hostess by asking her about the restaurant and learned, in the process, that Hoppers had only been open a week at that point. We were soon seated, by a window in front to my relief. During dinner, I followed the porter with a stout and found the two to be virtually indistinguishable. I subsequently ordered samplers of the remaining beers on tap, which were a pale ale, a ‘red’ ale (an amber, by most definitions), and the aforementioned ‘orange honey wheat’. The orange honey wheat lived up to its appearance and tasted for all the world to be grapefruit juice, the pale and the amber were passable, if disturbingly cloudy. All in all, I found the beer at Hoppers to be disappointing, but, as the place had only been open a week and the fact that they have very cool T-shirts, I would withhold judgment on the place. I would be interested to know how the beer shapes up after the brewery matures.

Subsequent to the visit to Hoppers, I learned that the Pub in Trolley Square now boasts a brewery (the Desert Edge Brewery). As I had spent a significant fraction of my intemperate college days ensconced in the confines of this self-same establishment, the presence of a brewery there immediately made it a must-see. Consequently, when the old man suggested that we get lunch at one of Salt Lake’s brewpubs, I had a ready-made destination. We arrived at the Pub (or as it is now officially known, ‘the Desert Edge Brewery at the Pub) where I discovered that, appropriately enough perhaps, my favorite bar stool, which had been on the first floor, was now occupied by the brewery. We went upstairs and were seated for lunch. When the waitress showed up for drink orders, the old man ordered coffee and the woman I travel with ordered hot tea. Somewhat taken aback by this display of temperance, I soldiered on and ordered a sampler of the in-house beer. On tap during this visit were a pilsener, a wheat, an English mild, an amber and a porter. Congratulating myself on my foresight, I pulled out a slip of paper and wrote down the names of these beers. Unfortunately, when I put this piece of paper in my coat pocket, it apparently folded itself into some heretofore undetected dimension and has never been seen since. The pilsener was excellent and, having heard my comments to this effect, the woman I travel with asked for a taste. Upon tasting this particular beer, she immediately abandoned her tea and ordered a glass. This singular event (my companion not being a beer drinker) confused, and even frightened, me to the point of speechlessness and, consequently, my only recourse was to return to the tray of samplers in front of me. Of these, only the English mild, which was the ‘specialty’ beer on tap at the time was a disappointment. The brewer had clearly made the beer by adding a small amount of chocolate malt to a pale ale recipe and, while it was a drinkable beer, it was one-dimensional and not very interesting. The others were good, well-brewed beers and the porter was a stand-out; I ordered a pint when I finished off the sampler tray.

This was the extent of my beer explorations in Salt Lake, as family duties prevented further sorties into the various brewpubs that have sprouted up in the area. Downtown Salt Lake boasts four: Squatters, Fuggles, Salt Lake Brewing Co., and the Red Rock Brewing Co. Squatters, Salt Lake’s original brewpub, and Fuggles are both under the same owners and a visit to Squatters two years ago would lead me to recommend to anyone in the area. Red Rock is heavily advertised in the Salt Lake area, but I have not heard anything about it one way or another. I would note that the downtown Salt Lake area is relatively small and all of these breweries are within a short walk of each other (if memory serves). This, combined with the fact that Utah state law requires that beer sold outside of the state liquor stores contain 3.2% alcohol or less, makes it possible for an enterprising beer aficionado to cut a pretty wide swath through the Salt Lake beer scene in one evening.

Farther afield, Wasatch Brewing Co. still operates its brewpub in Park City, although rumor has it that one can hardly get in the door during ski season, let alone order a beer. (Although, if you are into that sort of thing, once in the door, the probability of encountering some member of the glitterati is fairly high. Park City is the winter home of numerous members of the rich-and-famous set). Down the road from Park City at Wolf Mountain, the Thirsty Wolf claims to be a brewpub, but, in reality, has no in-house brewery; only a large and interesting variety of Utah brewed micros. Worth a stop, but again, during ski season, one might require a cattle-prod to get to the bar. I made my reconnaissance of the Thirsty Wolf at ten in the morning, shortly after exchanging my daughters for some verbal abuse from the ex-spouse. Appeasing her by presenting our two smiling and undamaged offspring, I made a discrete exit, collected the woman I travel with, who I had tasked with parking the car to avoid any potential entanglements with the ex (Mamma didn’t raise no fool for a son), and, quite naturally given the circumstances, headed for the bar. Even at that early hour, the place was crowded with ‘skiers’ practicing their ‘technique.’ Although, tempted by the beer selection, I was reminded that it was ten in the morning, and we left.

North of Salt Lake, in Ogden, Ebenezer’s boasts a very credible in-house brewery, excellent food, and a great building, including a spiral staircase leading up to the brewery that has been hewn from a single tree trunk (this information from two previous visits to the old homestead). Far, far to the south of Salt Lake, Moab (of all places) also boasts a brewery. I am aware of this due to the fact that, after finishing most of the Wasatch Christmas Ale, I headed to the nearby grocery store to see what might be available. In addition to the aforementioned Wasatch beers, there were offerings from the Unita Brewing Co. (another Salt Lake brewery) and a brewery in Moab having the bizarre name of Eddie McStiff’s. Remembering a time when even saying the word, "stiff" in Moab would be enough to get one pulled from one’s car and pummeled senseless by the local constabulary, I picked up bombers of "Eddie’s" Canyon Ale and Raspberry Wheat. I passed on the Blueberry Wheat Ale just because there are some roads I believe man was not meant to travel down. The Canyon Ale was similar to the Wasatch Ale, a full-bodied amber with toasted, as opposed to smoked, malt overtones.

As a side note, an interesting plus to my visit was the discovery that my dad, having curtailed his beer consumption since his days with the Navy during the "Big One", still had in his possession one of the bottles of my 1993 Winter Solstice Ale that I had given to him at that point. Naturally, this particular beer had long since disappeared out of my cellar and I was happy to be able to taste the effect of 3 years of aging. This suggests a solution to the problem of properly aging beers that would improve with age when the temptation is to drink them "because they are there," i.e., ship them to relatives or friends who don’t drink and that live beyond a few hours drive from you. My dad now has a couple of this year’s Solstice Ale in his refrigerator and, failing an unexpected visit from his golfing buddies, I expect they will still be there a few years hence.