Scary Australian Singletrack

Microbrews from Behind the Zion Curtain

From the August issue of Dirt Rag:

Hard-fought breweries turn out fine craft beers Utah

In Utah, beer makers have a bit of an uphill climb bringing their product to market. 115 years of conservative sentiment in the state has resulted in a strict set of laws concerning the sale of what the rest of us call plain old beer. Here in Utah its “heavy beer” and it might as well be a bottle of whiskey. New to the state and its sober ways, I ventured to root out the best of the heretic brewers.

            A solid handful of microbreweries have set out into this hostile policy environment and are not only making a business out of it, they’re making great beers too. Two breweries from Salt Lake City rise to the top: Epic, founded in 2008, and Uinta founded in 1993, are putting great care and style into producing light, heavy and everything in between.

            While Utah brews have followed the hop-happy trend as well as anybody, I like something that can refresh me on a hot afternoon without leaving me too puckered. My two picks are both mild on hops and accompanying bitterness, but pack flavor and uniqueness nonetheless.

            The Uinta Cockeyed Cooper is a wind powered, certified organic barley wine ale aged in bourbon casks. This beer explodes sweet and buttery deliciousness. Vanilla and cheery are in your face before you even take a sip. Uinta recommends having this big-bottle corked beer with old cheese or fancy desserts. I say skip the nonsense and enjoy this delicacy on its own. Never has so much alcohol been so well concealed, and at 11.1% ABV you’d better mind your p’s and q’s when you drink this one. The Cooper is a beautiful dark brown, really too drinkable, and complex without sitting too heavy. Keep your eyes out for this because it’s a special treat.

            The Cross Fever from Epic was, apparently, brewed with cyclists in mind. The makers are self-proclaimed “beer geeks, foodies and epic adventure junkies,” and with this beer as testament, I’ll take them at their word. It’s still mild on hops like the Cooper, but with just enough edge to keep things interesting. I enjoyed mine right from the bottle, but it pours a deep brown amber with a smooth, light head. At 4.8% ABV this beer represents Utah’s tendency toward mild beers, but it manages to stay smooth without tasting wimpy or watered down. I found the hearty malt base did well in supporting the almost too subtle hops. This beer would find good company in a burger, but stands alone too.  One of Epic’s “Classic” (read: cheapest) line, the Fever turned out like a good ‘cross bike: versatile and dialed in. 

Horseshoe Canyon

Horseshoe Canyon – A Yet Kept Secret I sit on the western rim of Horseshoe Canyon. A collection, the Park Service assures me, of some of the most important and breathtaking aboriginal art in the U.S. I have just traveled 32 miles along a dusty and rutted road, one of the washboard variety, to get here. It’s an entirely different experience than that which I had yesterday, in Arches national park, where pavement leads the way nearly to the base of all but a few of the most dramatic arches.

I experienced Arches for the first time, perhaps unfortunately, while also reading Ed Abbey for the first time. In Desert Solitaire Abbey spends much of his time railing against what he calls Industrial Tourism: The idea that the national park system, at least since the proliferation of the automobile, has become yet another cog in an oil-based, consumer society where citizens are too lazy to walk, pitch tents, dirty their faces and hands. Well damn, here I am ready to appreciate the magnificence of nature and Abbey’s got to rain all over it. I’m just an ant, his least favorite creature, crawling out of my steaming steel cage to join the rest. If Abbey could see Arches now, not 50 years since he was the sole curator at the end of a long dirt road in a National Monument where only the hardiest of tourists dared to venture, if he could see it now he’d be nauseous with disappointment. I am, at least.

But here on the rim of Horseshoe Canyon I’m somewhat reassured. A yet remote and detached “unit” of Canyonlands N.P., the stretch of archeologically significant canyon was added to the park in 1971. Horseshoe Canyon attracts only those visitors with the tolerance for at least one full hour of jarring travel and heightened risk. The 6.5-mile out and back is one of the longest hikes in the park. Not five cars sat in the red-rock parking lot when I arrived.

Tomorrow morning I’ll make the trip down into the canyon and see the Great Gallery and other sites for myself. Tomorrow night I’ll attempt sleep while my mind grapples with thoughts of genocide, destruction and loss, but for now I’m comforted to know that there are still places remote and rugged within our system of natural attractions. There are still places where well-trained tourists like me forget to bring water to the middle of the desert because they assume anything marked with the ubiquitous little tent symbol must have a pump. I’m not asking for a pilgrimage every time I want to see a national park, but I am asking for a long, sweaty hike that will leave me parched, exhausted and fulfilled.