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Giving You The Business:
A A Look at at Growth Within Utah’s Craft Beer Industry
By Jesse Hawlish
jhawlish@gmail.com
Craft beer is business, and these days,
business is good. As the national
economy swings dangerously above
a pit of crocodiles on a rickety rope
bridge, the craft beer industry is up
ahead, bushwhacking its way forward.
Why so recession-proof? They say folks
spend more on their vices when the
chips are down, but I’m going to have
to call bullshit on that theory. Craft beer
is far too delicious to be considered
a transgression. You will not find Salt
Lake’s craft beer fanciers catching a
self-loathing buzz in an alleyway after
spending their last three bucks on a
Pfeifferhorn Lager from Epic Brewing
Company. These well-made beers aren’t
popular because they take the edge off
your shitty life—they’re popular because
they’re well-made to begin with.
As Utah Brewer’s Cooperative Brewmaster
Dan Burick puts it, “We make
great beer here and we have the best
customers in the world. There are a lot
of young, active people in this state,”
he says. “For the most part, that is our
demographic. Those that are not young
in age are young at heart.” It’s true that
Utah’s population is young and healthy,
and we do love us some beer, but as
Bohemian Brewery’s Marketing VP Pete
Petras notes, the trend is national.
“Right now we’re in a national boom with
crafting,” Petras says. “It’s not only craft
beer, it’s craft cheeses, craft whatever—there’s
more transparency with
the manufacturing process so people
are really looking at what they’re putting
in their bodies.” Talk about upending
L-R: owner Dave Cole, head brewer
Kevin Crompton and owner
Peter Erickson of Epic Brewing pose
by their newly installed tanks.
siastic, back-patting, cheerful and very
much in love with what they do.
Over this last year in Utah, the craft beer
industry’s enthusiasm has translated into
serious growth, improvements and modifications
to some of our valley’s prominent
breweries. One year ago, Bohemian
Brewery completed construction on a
huge addition to its brewhouse. “This
[addition] was meant to be a packaging
and canning facility, but now because
of our growth, it had to [become] an
extension of the brewery,” says Petras.
As recently as 2007, Bohemian’s annual
production was 1,200 barrels of beer.
With the addition of a half dozen 60-to-
90-barrel massive indoor stainless steel
silos called lagering tanks or fermenters,
Petras says, “We’re projecting this year’s
annual production to be about 5,000
[barrels].” Plans are already in place
to double the new building’s fermentation
capacity again, adding four more
90-barrel lagering tanks and two more
60-barrel fermenters (each of which puts
a $20,000+ dent in the wallet). Despite
this success, the boys at Bohemian keep
it humble. “We have a national demand
for our product right now, but we’re taking
it slow. We don’t want to get too big
for our britches.”
Epic Brewing Company has also
exploded since its infamous debut in
March 2010. Over this last year, they’ve
doubled the size of their building to
keep up with demand, adding over
5,000 feet of floor space for new equipment.
They filled the space with 20
new bourbon barrels and two 40-barrel
fermenting tanks, and there’s still
room for future expansions. The new
brew space and equipment increased
Epic’s fermentation capacity from 70
barrels to 360 barrels. As head brewer
Kevin Crompton says, “We knew this
expansion needed to happen about two
weeks after we opened.”
The Utah Brewers Cooperative (UBC) is
Salt Lake’s heavyweight craft brewery,
producing all of the packaged beer for
the Wasatch and Squatters brands.
Last year, Burick’s major addition to his
operation was a new bottling line. “[It]
handles the beer more gently, adding to
the quality of the product while allowing
us to achieve more throughput,” Burick
says. During 2011, he hopes to expand
with enough fermenters to raise overall
capacity by 20%. “We have made many
adjustments to the brewhouse to
increase its speed and cool the wort
faster, thus increasing wort quality,” says
Burick. “Better wort quality equals better
fermentations, better fermentations equal
better beer.”
All said, we ought to be proud of our
local breweries—and not just the ones
highlighted here. Having as many
options as we do for quality local beer
in this valley is fucking neat. The UBC
won Mid-Size Brewery of the year at
the 2010 Great American Beer Festival.
Bohemian’s Czech Pilsner and Viennese
Lager are the first (and, surprise,
only) beers to have been to the top of
Mount freakin’ Everest. Epic’s beers
are, well, you’ve tried them: they’re
awesome. The Internet agrees with this
assertion: Epic was just named the
third-best top new brewery in the world
by ratebeer.com.
This is the part where I’d tell you to go
out and support local business and blah
blah, but it’s obvious we as a population
have been doing just that—and
in record numbers. Keep up the good
work, boys.
Photo: Peter Anderson
stereotypes: The pot-bellied drunkard
in a stained wife-beater can keep his
Budweiser—craft beer is the interest
of a fit, health-conscious and younger
generation. The brewhouses I toured are
manned by friendly, often tattooed and
often bearded young men. The business
models are always vested in product
quality first and foremost. Each person
involved in the craft beer industry gives
off that sense of job satisfaction you
rarely see anymore. Brewers, owners
and front desk attendents are all enthu-
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