Saturday, December 20, 2014

The Annex by Epic Brewing - (Salt Lake City, UT) - 16 DEC 2014

On my last visit to Salt Lake City I visited Epic Brewing Company.  It's a great place, but quite small only sitting 6 people.  Luckily when I was there, it wasn't crowded and I had a seat and with that the opportunity to try some of the more than 36 different beers produced by Epic.  But in acknowledgement that there was more demand that could be filled by this small "restaurant" (Utah law dictates a restaurant have at least 6 six seats, with 2 of them handicapped accessible), Epic created The Annex by Epic Brewing.  This pleasant gastropub focuses on artisanal dishes (read:  eloquent descriptions and small portions) while serving up an assortment of low alcohol draft beers and taster (2oz), snifter (6oz), pint (16oz) or bottle (22oz) amounts of the high alcohol bottled beers.  The place was hipster cool from the bright lighting and exposed brick work to the bearded/hatted clientele.  

The food that we had was great.  Chickpea fries (chick pear flour formed to tofu consistency and fried) with quinoa, whole baby carrots, and figs.  Bavette (French catch-all phrase for thin steak, or as my friend said, when they cut your steak for you) Frites with potatoes and greens. However, once back to the hotel, my friend felt the need to hit the snack bar.

View from our seats at the bar.
Extreme Beer:  Brainless on Peaches

Extreme Beer:  Smoked and Oaked

One of the main reasons for wanting to visit this place was to try two beers hightlighted in the The Brewtal Truth Guide to Extreme Beers.  I knew that there was no way to down 22oz'ers of these 11% behemoths, so was glad of the snifter sized pours.


Both were Belgian style beers, but each with a different barrel aged flavor profile.  Nothing overwhelming in either of these.  Smoked and Oaked has the subtle woody astringency from the whiskey barrel adding a slight complexity to the Belgian base.  The Brainless on Peaches picks up subtle flavors of the peach puree added to white wine barrels.

View from the rear of The Annex.

Festive lighting above the bar.

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