New Utah Breweries

Believe it or not, Utah has a great beer history that’s only enhanced by the crazy influences of the dominant culture. Ever since the pioneers first set up shop in the Salt Lake Valley, beer was here. Breweries of all sizes once dotted the landscape, proving the need for beer in pioneer culture. Our zest for suds may have lost its way since then, but it’s still an important part of our lives.

Since the repeal of prohibition, there has never been such a desire for great craft beer in Utah. In the last 20 years, Utahns have seen an explosion of breweries. Starting with Wasatch Brewing in 1987, local breweries have been producing a variety of complex styles and creating a demand that many felt was never obtainable here behind the Zion Curtain.
   
In total, 26 breweries have popped up in Utah since Greg Schirf’s Wasatch Brewing opened up, and many are still with us today. Others like Ebenezer’s Brewing Co. out of Ogden (1994) and Brook Haven Brewing (2001) in Midvale, have since closed up shop.

There are currently 19 breweries operating in the state of Utah that are brewing unique beers. The most recent to open was Zion Canyon Brewing Company which set up shop in 2006 in Springdale, Utah. ZCBC services most of southern and central Utah with their craft beer.

Today is a different story. Years of combined planning has given rise to two new breweries in Utah days apart, proving that even in a downward economy people in Utah still thirst for great beer. Epic Brewing Company located in downtown Salt Lake City received their final license on March 26 and went into production on that day. Shades of Pale Brewing Co. in Park City acquired their permits exactly two weeks later on April 9, 2010 and began making pilot batches of beer that day.

Things like this don’t just happen in Utah’s craft beer community. The restrictions that are placed on the manufacturing and selling of alcohol in Utah can be difficult on new entrepreneurs. And if it wasn’t for the creation of the Class 5 Packaging License in 2008 that allows breweries to sell their beer that’s made on the premises, these boys may never have been inspired to start brewing.

So I couldn’t pass up the chance to get my ass over to these two new breweries, find out what they’re all about and get the low-down on why Utah’s newest “Beer Gurus” decided to get into alcohol business—in Utah of all places.

I started at Epic’s new state of the art facility in SLC. Owners Dave Cole and Peter Erickson are new to the beer business but have a passion and a business model that may change the craft brew landscape in Utah. Kevin Crompton is the brew master. Crompton is a local boy with a long resumé both locally and nationally.

SLUG: How did you guys first meet?
Erickson: Dave and I met in San Diego in the mid-eighties, we were in the brine shrimp business making pet food.

SLUG: Is that what brought you guys out here?
Erickson: Yeah, not many people can say that they came to Utah for the Great Salt Lake, but we did!

SLUG: So what’s your background like?
Cole: We’re both biologists. I majored in Marine Science, Peter in Genetics.

SLUG: Is that how you fell in love with beer? Brewing and biology go hand in hand right?
Cole: That, and the fact that we moved to the Bay Area in the late eighties/early nineties during the craft beer explosion there.
           
SLUG: So what makes two seemingly sane guys from California want to get into the beer business in Utah?         
Cole: We like to manufacture things, make things that are special. Beer is one of those things that has always been pulling at us––even when we were in San Francisco.
Erickson: Plus the opportunity to do something different as well as take advantage of some of the new licensing laws that allow for the sale of “high point” beer directly from the brewery.
Cole: It gave us focus to create and deliver a fresh high quality product straight to the consumer, and that hasn’t been anyone’s real focus as far as high gravity beer goes in the state, not since before prohibition anyway.

SLUG: How did you guys come up with this business model?
Erickson: It was a gradual evolution. We had an idea of a very small brewery that just kept on getting larger and larger due to recommendations from Kevin and the model began changing, probably four or five times since conception.

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Comments on this article

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Carl A. Nyberg

Peter @ David- Saw this nice article about your new endeavor in Slug Magazine. Heard about this new company from folks at Squaw Pt. in Gladstone, MI. Best of luck, Carl

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