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Utah Brews: The Untapped Story of Ogden’s Becker Brewing and Malting Company: The Becker Legacy

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The Becker Legacy

SCACAINEMSS31OVBx002Fd10Item001.pdf
“Beehive State Brew” Salt Lake Tribune article, 2007 [Click image to enlarge; click it again to browse all pages.]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Becker Brewing and Malting Company Records, CAINEMSS31 OV, Box 002, Folder 10, Item 001)

Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, Albert’s sons (who had assumed control of the company in the wake of their father’s death) worked to liquidate the former Becker Brewing and Malting Company. They sold off property and equipment in order to pay back their investors, and today, little remains of Utah’s longest operating brewery. After the Ogden plant was closed in 1964, it sat abandoned for almost two decades. It was torn down in the 1984, and the lot has remained vacant ever since. The Evanston plant was also demolished, and now several businesses reside on the land where the brewery used to sit. The railway spur that connected the Evanston plant to the Union Pacific railroad has also been abandoned, though it remains visible today.

SCACAINEMSS31AddenSer03Bx003F01Item050.jpg
Advertisement for Becker’s Uinta Club, 1941 [Click image to enlarge.]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Becker Brewing and Malting Company Records Addendum, CAINEMSS31 Addendum Series 03, Box 003, Folder 01, Item 050)
SCACAINEMSS31AddenSer03Bx003F01Item066_Front.jpg
Advertisement for Becker’s American Pilsener Beer, 1947 [Click image to enlarge.]
(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Becker Brewing and Malting Company Records Addendum,CAINEMSS31 Addendum Series 03, Box 003, Folder 01, Item 066)

Still, the Becker legacy lives on in the communities it impacted. The street around the property in Evanston is now called Becker’s Circle as a tribute to the former brewery. Gus’s love of outdoor recreation and his tireless support in the development of the ski industry around Ogden is remembered as well. Snowbasin Resort, located just east of Ogden, features Becker Hill, the Becker Triple ski lift, and a run called Becker Face.

Brewing has also made a comeback in Utah and across the United States. In 1978, just thirteen years after the Beckers ceased operations, the industry hit an all-time low with only 50 brewing companies operating fewer than 100 breweries in the entire nation. However, thanks to an increase in small-craft breweries over the last few decades, the industry is making a comeback—even in Utah. In 1984 these small, local breweries held only 1 percent of the American beer market, but now they account for an impressive 12 percent. This growth has also resulted in an all-time high for the number of breweries in the country: 4,144 as of 2015. Today, some twenty-two Utah microbreweries carry on the Becker tradition of making Utah beer for Utahns, and more seem to open their doors each year. It took over half a century, but Gus Becker’s vision of a vibrant marketplace of small breweries has become a reality.