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SALT LAKE CITY — On Nov. 1, Utah will begin allowing stronger beer — 4.0% alcohol by weight, up from the current 3.2% — to be sold in grocery and convenience stores.
For major national brands like Budweiser and Coors, this change will simply allow them to serve Utah with the same beer they sell everywhere else in the country. But for local breweries, established and grown with local laws at top of mind, the transition may not be so simple — in fact, two called it a logistical “nightmare.”
Adam Curfew, COO and director of production at Wasatch and Squatters breweries, used the word to describe this year’s challenges, but he still expects to have higher-point Wasatch and Squatters beers available on Nov. 1 or very close to it.
But not all of them will be exactly 5% alcohol by volume, he said. A 4% alcohol by weight, the new legal limit, is equivalent to 5% alcohol by volume. ABV is generally the measurement listed on alcohol packaging and advertising.
“In adjusting our recipes, we’ve decided that some of the beers are going to taste better at 4.8 (ABV),” Curfew said. “Our Apricot Hefeweizen, for example, is one that we’re going to keep at 4.8 instead of 5.
“It may be in the future that we’ll create some new beers that would taste better with less alcohol, but right now all our beers will be at least 4.8.”
Moab Brewery owner and operations manager John Borkoski said all his company’s 4% ABV beer will move to a full 5% ABV. He seconded Curfew’s assessment that the state’s quick transition to stronger beer has been a “nightmare” to navigate.
“But we’re going to get it done,” Borkoski said. “It’s been very hard, but it behooves us to get on the same page with national standards.”
Though it might seem that a 1% increase in alcohol content might be more or less undetectable to beer drinkers, Curfew said the change does create a fuller-bodied flavor. That said, the bigger challenge in this seven-month turnaround — from the governor's March signature on the new beer legislation to the Nov. 1 rollout — is in branding and packaging rather than the brewing itself, Curfew and Borkoski said.
“We’ve been doing this long enough that we think we have the experience to adjust these beers and still make them fantastic,” Curfew said. But changing the packaging includes redesigns, new labels and trying to time the transition so that old packaging doesn’t go to waste.
Throw in the logistical challenge of a statewide, one-day rollout of the higher-point beer, and it’s certainly enough to keep a brewer up at night. Curfew said the passage of prestaging legislation during the upcoming special session — which would make it explicitly legal to receive and store the new beer prior to its Nov. 1 introduction — would make for a smoother transition.
“It would be impossible for us to deliver new beer to a thousand stores in the city all at once,” Curfew said.
The special legislative session begins Monday, and the prestaging of so-called heavy beer is one of seven action items the governor has asked the Legislature to consider. If it passes, it will provide one less pressing concern in what has been a frenetic year for Utah-based brewers.
