Celebrating their 30th anniversary, Roosters is one of Utah’s most established craft brewing brands. They have been on a roll since the early nineties, and they just keep rolling.
I’m old enough to remember when Ogden was the armpit of the Wasatch Front. The Salt Lake Tribune loved to report on Ogden’s crime and drug problems. This was in the early nineties when Pete and Kim Buttschardt decided to take a gamble on 25th Street. At that time there were dive bars and an excess supply of empty, dilapidated buildings.
Ogden’s always been like the stepchild city of the Wasatch. Instead of having a Main Street, they have a 25th Street. Why? Nobody knows. But after Roosters opened, the street began to improve. More restaurants began opening and courageous entrepreneurs began renovating properties. Today, 25th Street is the lifeblood and soul of Ogden’s downtown local scene, and Roosters Brewing has become the street’s cultural and community institution.
Before opening Roosters, The Buttschardts (Pete and his wife Kim) owned and operated the Union Grill at Union Station, on the west end of the street. Pete Buttschardt says, “Brew pubs were hot right then, and we considered taking on more space at Union Station. Then we became partners with Judy [the building’s owner] and we got to work.”
They demolished and gutted the property themselves. “I can demolish, I just can’t build,” Buttschardt says. They transformed the former Kansas City liquor building into a facility capable of both brewing beer and serving hundreds of meals a day. “I thought I might end up being the head brewer, then decided I needed to find someone,” says Pete.
That someone ended up being a Milwaukee, Wisconsin brewer who was already offered an opportunity in North Carolina, “Pete wined and dined … no, he beered and dined me, took me running, showed me around, and I decided on Ogden because I fell in love with the place and the people,” says Head Brewer (Brewmaster) Steve Kirkland. He added that he felt Rooster’s heart was in the right place. Many new breweries are simply driven by the financial incentive, but it was clear that Roosters wanted to become the community brew pub.
Kirkland’s passion for traditional craft beer and hop and malt-forward brews has been a fixture with Roosters for 30 years. An avid runner, Kirkland has completed ultra marathons while training for his next “ultra” and still tackles a rigorous running schedule. Kirkland raised his family in Ogden.
His brewing philosophy is old-school. “I love light lagers, I like porters and stouts, I also love IPAs and big hopped-up beers.” Kirkland’s new “Identity Crisis” features the brewmaster’s head with a hop over it, and was designed by his daughter who is studying illustration at Weber State. It’s a “session IPA” but he hates to use what he believes is an oxy-moron to describe a beer. It doesn’t quite feel right. But he succumbed to the trend that IPAs are essentially light lagers with lots of hops. But his newest creation is my favorite. Kirkland says he was never into big sour beers, fruity beers, or seltzers. As Utah’s largest locally-owned brewery, he also says non-Alcoholic beers are not on their horizon. “We make a seltzer and we sell it.” Asking about their brewing roots and favs he says, “Our original Golden Spike, now honey wheat ale, and polygamy beers were old traditional favorites.”
It turns out that Roosters had a polygamy beer before Wasatch’s Polygamy Porter. “We were just never into spending a ton on marketing and merchandise so our polygamy beer never blew up like Wasatch did”. During the 2002 Winter Olympics, the world bought thousands of polygamy porter shirts, but they drank and enjoyed plenty of Roosters beers.
With five locations, the Buttschardt’s have their hands very full. They hired a full-time CEO from the company of Kim Bowsher, who is now handling logistics, marketing and day-to-day operations and overall management of their 300 employees. Kim is excited to be at the helm. She helped launch “The Coop”, a new bar in Layton beside their Roosters Layton location. And she recently helped open the Mercantile, a collaboration with the Roosters Hospitality Group and Beehive Cheese and Cafe Mercantile just a half block east of their flagship Roosters location.
Restaurants and brewpubs and brewing fresh craft beer has made them big, “But we always want to honor our local roots.” Bowsher says they are supporting community events, gatherings, local sports — that is what we are all about, “We want to create that third space that people can go to with their families and to meet their friends.”
Feature Image: Rooster’s Head Brewer, Steve Kirkland and Owner, Pete Buttschardt. Photo by Richard Markosian.
