As expected, Salt Lake City rocked!

From Uinta Brewery, to Epic, Squatters/Wasatch, and all the pubs, SLC knows its beer!

As expected, I had a friggin’ ball in Salt Lake City, Utah! It’s been an awesome four days before landing back in Atlanta for like 12 hours before heading to Norfolk, VA. While I did get a chance to visit some great attractions that were actually not beer-related like the incredible, state-of-the-art Natural History Museum of Utah; the highly interactive, yet bugged out LeonardoMuseum; the jaw-dropping, 5-diamond Grand America Hotel; a Utah Jazz game; and a handful of great restaurants like the farm-to-table Pago, I will primarily show them love in J’Adore Magazine. This site’s primarily about beer and beer it shall be! 

I got my tasting on, ranging from all of the impressive session beers poured by taps that max out at 4 percent ABV (thanks to that restricting draft law), to some seriously potent bottled sippers that are no joke. But first up, Uinta Brewery.

Named after the mountain range in the northeastern region of Utah, this brewing powerhouse has made great leaps since they released their flagship brew, the Cutthroat Pale Ale, in 1993. Within the past decade, I have had the chance to indulge in some of their well-crafted cold ones thanks to cross-country distribution to the ATL including the Belgian-Style Monkshine (6.8 percent), a number of heavy hitters from their potent Crooked Line Series, and my new favorite, the Hop Notch IPA (7.3%, 82 IBUs) that is killin’ ‘em from coast to coast.

Cool Lindsay showing
off the Labyrinth black ale aged
in rye barrels (13.2%)

Well thanks to my boy Clayton aka Seymour Cash driving me over to Uinta’s home, this massive brewery was happily shown off by the VP of Sales Steve Kuftinec, and Lindsay Berk, the marketing manager responsible for bringing in some pretty damn creative label designs to their trio of revered lines. Frankly, Uinta is kicking much tail, distributing more than 30,000 barrels annually around the U.S.
After toasting off my arrival at their full service beer pub on the main floor with the very impressive dry-hopped organic pale ale, Wyld, from their Organic Line, I took a gang of photos during the personal tour. Lucky for all of us, they just happened to be brewing a new batch of Hop Notch and bottling 750s of the Tilted Smile Imperial Pilsner (9 percent) from their Crooked Line. 

It was a great time and I saw a lot including their barrel house that was stocked with aging ales that had my mouth watering, including the bourbon-aged Cockeyed Cooper barleywine that you see below. Trust me, I will be on Uinta's arses to alert me when these tastefully aged masterpieces hit the shelves. 

In the meantime, I will happily settle for their two thoughtful parting gifts: a bottle Detour Double IPA (9.5 percent, 74 IBUs) and a T-Shirt boasting their new imperial black double IPA, the Dubhe (sounding like doo-bee at 9.2 percent and an astounding 109 IBUs) brewed with real hemp, but politically named after the Centennial Star in 1996. You gotta love it!

Look out for the batch of Hop Notch in three weeks I so graciously poured a bucket full of hops into.

Thanks again Steve and L-Boogie!

Next up, kicking it with the Utah Brewers Cooperative!

Cheers!
Ale