Beehive Brew
Let's leave wine for a bit and talk about the rich history of Utah beer..(blank stares all around)
Actually, there is more to Utah's liquored past than abstinence. Local brewer/pub-owner, Del Vance has penned a 300-page book entitled Beer in the Beehive (Utah is known as the beehive state). From Vance's recent interview with the local alt-weekly, we learn that..
- Between the post-prohibition era and 1968, local brewers were producing upwards of 100,000 barrels of beer per year
- One avant garde brewer obtained a licenese to produce beet-based beer
- ZCMI, the LDS Church-owned general store sold beer, wine and liquor out of its Salt Lake City location in the late 1800s
- Brigham Young passed a law in the Utah territory (known as Deseret at the time) prohibiting the production of whiskey - except by him. Young's spirit was known as "Valley Tan." Apparently, even by frontier standards, it was heavy-duty stuff
- A few of the legendarily-named beers produced by modern Utah brewers are: St. Provo Girl (Squatters Brewery), First Amendment Lager and Polygamy Porter (Wasatch Brewery)
Beer in the Beehive is published by Dream Garden Press.
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