Moab Brewery‘s head brewer Jeff Van Horn quietly goes about his business brewing fantastic beers in Utah’s most alluring small town.
In Moab, the Green and Colorado rivers invite tourists to kayak, river raft and surf. Van Horn watches all the fun on the his drive to work each day, while he and his assistant brewers satisfy the demands of thirsty tourists.
Moab Brewery’s Scorpion Pale Ale on tap: Just $4 for a pint, is truly the most refreshing treat Moab’s Main Street has to offer. Luckily it’s on tap in a lot of places. “We sell 90% of our draft beer in Moab,” says Van Horn. It can be found at a few of Salt Lake City’s best watering holes, but Moab Brewery truly lives up to its name.
After completing the Moab half-marathon, 13.1 miles, legs burning and throat parched, right after the finish line was a small beer garden, John Borkoski, was serving up cold American IPA draft beers from Moab Brewery.
About 18 months ago Moab Brewery took the leap into 22-ounce cans. Their high-point variety “Johnny’s American IPA” is actually selling more in the grocery stores and convenience stores in Colorado than it sells in its low-point variety in Utah. They have been working on getting their high-point canned beer into Utah Liquor Stores, but they have struggled with the DABC‘s long process and restrictions.
Moab also offers a Desert Select line that is bottled in large European style stopper-top bottles (like Grolsh). The beers we sampled are just as good as varieties of Epic beers, but they are close to impossible to find at liquor stores. This is somewhat of a thorn in the side of Van Horn, and he wishes that Utah’s great beers were treated by the DABC with more equality.
Truly one of the best assets of Moab is its fine brewery. Every Utah town should have a brewery they can call its own. It builds a sense of pride and ownership in one’s community. And like the monks in medieval times who provided fine beer to parishioners to relieve the pains of peasants suffering under tyrannical rule— local brews too, in modern communities, have their special place in relieving the masses from modern tyrannies.
