Bottoms Up

No way do I want to turn this blog into a political platform, but the bottom line truth is I strongly opposed Prop. 8, the ban on gay marriage that was approved narrowly by California voters last week.

The Mormon Church and the Catholic Church were strong backers of the initiative and individual Mormons and I’m sure devout Catholics contributed heavily to the campaign for Prop. 8.  On Sunday, demonstrators protested passage of the amendment and LDS  (Latter Day Saints aka Mormon church) support of the proposition with demonstrations at the Oakland Mormon Temple and in Sacramento.

If you opposed Prop. 8, but sign-waving’s not your bag, I have another idea:  Buy Polygamy Porter. The beer’s slogan: Why have just one. Check out the label. And, since it’s not sold here in California, just talk about it.

What, you ask, is Polygamy Porter?  It’s an excellent 4 percent ABV porter, made by Wasatch Brew Pub & Brewery in Park City Utah. You can read a post I wrote about it in 2004, here.

Briefly, Wasatch was founded in 1989 by Greg Schirf, who moved to Utah from Wisconsin.  He came up with Polygamy Porter as an attention getter in mostly Latter Day Saints Utah. Did he ever get it.

The LDS (Mormon) church banned polygamy a century ago. But the practice still haunts the modern church and there’s constant publicity about Utah fundamentalists who still practice plural marriage. Schirf followed Polygamy Porter with Evolution Ale.

Go to this link and watch Schirf’s video on Polygamy Porter. (It’s at the bottom of the Web page.)

Wasatch in Park City in the mountains east of Salt Lake City and Squatters in Salt Lake bottle their beers together in a joint venture, Utah Brewers Cooperative. You can find the beer all over the metro Salt Lake City area.  But as far as I know it’s not available in California.

The place to find it is the Salt Lake City  Airport.  By the way, it’s an excellent beer and won silver this year at the World Beer Cup. You can also buy the T-shirt here.