Hoppers Grill & Brewing Co.

The food is and service are very good. The beer is limited to 4% ABV by Utah state laws. If you like session type beers in every style then you may be satisfied. I go there for the food not the beer which OK.

Been here a couple of times. Once they said they were going to do some trappist monk brews, right. The food was pretty good, brews not too bad. Typical UT stuff, for the most part.

 

Great food. Anything fried here will be delicious. They use their spent grains to make their bread/buns/etc. It isn't world class fine dining type food, but if you are in the mood for traditional "bar food" you can't go wrong. The beer is decent. Some better than others. My personal favorite is Uno Mas. It's a Mexican styled lager served with a lime. It isn't very out there or different, but it is EXTREMELY refreshing.

 

Stop #326 on my world brewery tour.

My new company is about 5 minutes from here which made it very convenient for me to stop by to sample there beers while in town. I had low expectations going into it based on the B- rating on BA and vegas-like neon chain exterior photo.

This is the most underrated brewpub I've been to. The interior is a drastic improvement over the exterior. Cozy with lots of rich wood and brick. The brewery is well displayed behind the bar.

I had a full beer sampler and can say the qualify was solid across the board...
orange honey wheat
uno mas (Mexican lager)
Pilsner
Pale ale
red ale
mild brown - GABF 07 gold
porter
stout
helles festbeir

I look forward to return visits.

Visited over New Years weekend.

A: Good, I liked the layout and the construction of this place, tall walls and plenty of windows. The vats are on display behind the bar, which is cool. Lots of tables and happy people all drinking different brews.

Q: Good. Beer was just fine and all of the food looked good.

Service: Good, the gal that filled my growler was helpful with tastes and info too.

Selection: Good, ten beers on tap; a winter brew, pilsener, hef, black and tan, nitro stout, porter, black and red, etc.

F: Can't speak to this as I didn't try much but everything liked like good quality pub/grill food.

Value was reasonable in my opinion.

This was the first brewpub we stopped in on the first leg of our recent West Coast adventure. I was a little taken aback when our host informed us that the SLC area has a burgeoning micro-brew scene, since I had always been told Utah was a 3.2 state. After looking around at a few websites, I became more and more interested. Hoppers was probably the place I was least interested in, but our host assured me the beer was good, and it was the brewpub closest to Snowbird, where we were going to hike down Hidden Peak afterward.

First off, we were seated by a hostess and waitress that both looked too young to be able to drink. That's usually not a good sign. The place seemed more like a generic sports bar than anything else. On the other hand, some brewing equipment was located behind the bar in plain view, if my memory is not mistaken. Nothing too impressive or otherwise exceptional about the atmosphere, but everything seemed pretty clean and sterile, which I usually don't car for in a pub, but at a brewpub, I would expect a more sterile environment.

The service was alright. Attentive, but kind of obnoxiously so. Maybe it was just the Fran Drescher-like laugh that did it for me...

The selection was pretty decent. I would estimate about 8 choices. They were out of the first beer I asked for, but I ended up with a pretty good IPA. If I wouldn't have known ahead of time about the light ABV, I probably would have guessed it to be about 6%. When I tried my mom's Hefe and her friend's Stout, the malt flavor and body was incredibly light on the palate, so it was a little more of a giveaway.

The food was horrible, though. I had the Garlic Burger, which tasted like some pre-made frozen patty. It took me the rest of the night to finally start to feel like I was able to digest it. The fries were decent, at least.

Prices were pretty reasonable, and the beer was better than I thought it would be, but I would never come back to eat. I would definitely come back to SLC area to try some other places, however, since I ended up having a great time hiking around the Wasatch Mountains, and the Mormon influence was a little less significant than what I had the place pegged for.

Hoppers is a fine place, and while the atmosphere is a little pretend-hole-in-the-wall, it's the closest thing to an East coast seafood joint that I've found in the Salt Lake valley. I especially like the side dining room which has low ceilings and exposed ceiling joists. Overall the atmosphere is fun, laid back, and mature. Thankfully you won't be fighting through minions of college kids here. It's usually an adult crowd.

Food is good, and I always order seafood. The steamed crab is as good as anywhere, and the fresh seafood choices are a wonderful treat, especially this far from an ocean. Being a Baltimore native, I keep ordering crab cakes in Utah and I keep being bitterly disappointed. I was again disappointed with the crab cakes at Hoppers (too much damn filling, not enough crab). But it's only a small gripe. Overall the food is really quite good.

On to the beer...

There are many beer choices at Hoppers, and they're all brewed right on the premises. As is shown on the cute little coasters, the beers are available in may different "colors" ranging from light to dark. There's nothing too creative here, just classic standards representing each beer type. The fresh beer is a nice change though and I have liked everything I've tried. I just wish they would make a beer that actually had some personality or character beyond "generic stout" or "everyday pilsner."