Salt Lake City – Mountains, Mormons & Beer

Salt Lake City left a memorable impression on me in a few ways. First and foremost while couch surfing I attended my first ever baseball game in a stadium with a beautiful mountain backdrop. Secondly Salt Lake City is home to the Mormon religion (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and while not religious myself I do occasionally find the idea of religion fascinating. Lastly I did a brewery tour of Epic Brewery and I can confirm they have named themselves appropriately.

Baseball

Can’t remember who was playing, does it matter? We had great weather and plenty of beer and the awesome atmosphere of a live sport venue.

Salt Lake City Baseball Game

Salt Lake City Baseball Game

 

Mormons

One of the interesting things about Salt Lake City is that it is full of Mormons – those who belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As I understand it the Mormons founded the city back in 1847; as a place of their own where they could escape persecution. Since Joseph Smith Jr. first published the Book of Mormon seventeen years earlier and started accumulating followers other Americans ostracised them and repeatedly drove them away. They were kicked out of Ohio, Missouri and Illinois (Where the founder Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered while being held under treason charges). Brigham Young took over leadership of the group and later officially incorporated the church. Today there are over fourteen million followers and the church is estimated to be worth over $30,000,000,000 (Thirty Billion).

We walked the grounds of the Salt Lake Temple and watched the free movie on Joseph Smith Jr. and the founding of the church. I would say at the core of the Mormon religion is the belief in Joseph Smith Jr. as a modern day prophet who spoke with God.

Mormon Church

Mormon Church

Salt LakeTemple (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)

Salt Lake Temple (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)

 

Epic Brewing Company

My last memorable experience in Salt Lake City was a tour of Epic Brewery with a few other beer enthusiasts who were all part of the Salt Lake City couch surfing network. Epic is a new brewery, they brew many varieties of full strength beers (because anything else is lame) and the head brewer Kevin Cromton who gave us our tour is awesome.

Photo by Peaks & Valleys

Some more photos:

Utah State Capitol Building

Utah State Capitol Building

Utah State Capitol Building Dome

Utah State Capitol Building Dome

 

Want to see more of our Great North American Road Trip?
– The Plan
– Map showing Posts by Location

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Comments

  1. Aimee Tolhopf says

    Lucky I’ve always wanted to go to a baseball game but it was the wrong time of year when we were there.

    • Overall its kind of like cricket, my host even described it this way. You sit, you chat, you drink beer and in between you watch the game. But this time it was more exciting. My host managed to catch a foul ball, first time he’d ever had the opportunity in the hundreds of games he’d been to. He was grinning from ear to ear, and then the funniest thing happened. Some chubby little kid came running up from the other end of the stand and asked if he could have it, I was kind of stunned, my host was too; he shrugged his shoulders and handed it over.

  2. Epic Brewing Company? That’s a pretty epic name for a company that does beer! You didn’t mention anything about the beer thou, was it good?

    • Yes it was good. Utah has pretty restrictive alcohol laws so they were not able to give us tastes on the tour but I bought a few bottles to take away with me, some were quite pricey but all were very nice. I believe they’ve won quite a few awards. Epic is more than just the beer, the company and the head brewer left a very positive impression on me.