Colder mornings and changing leaves don’t just signal the start of autumn in Park City. It also means it’s time for the Mountain Beer Festival at Deer Valley Resort.

But Director of Beverage Josh Hockman has been thinking about the festival, set for Sept. 18-20, all year long.

It’s his baby, an event he dreamed up and brought to life five years ago as a festival that not only brings beer lovers to beautiful Park City, but puts them in front of the brewers themselves.

“It was to be a two-way street for the guests or the attendees that are coming,” Hockman said. “Take the time. Like, ‘What hops did you use? Why are you proud of this? Where did the name Pie Hole come from?’” 

It was also created with an emphasis on Utah beers to reflect the resort’s values in supporting local businesses, said Hockman.

“All of our draft towers at Deer Valley have supported local Utah breweries … coming up on 30 years now,” he said. “We don’t want the Budweisers of the world and the White Claws of the world. They’ve got their place, but it’s not on our property.”

Nothing major is changing for this fifth iteration, Hockman said. The “meat and potatoes” of the festival should be familiar to returning attendees.

As in years past, festivalgoers park at Snow Park and ride the Silver Lake Express chairlift to the event at mid mountain on Silver Lake lawn. It’s family-friendly with a kids area that has face painting, balloon animals, a sand pit and the Deer Valley Creamery ice cream truck.

Guests over 21 can purchase taster tokens, the required currency to sample the breweries’ 4-ounce beer pours. So far, there are 20 confirmed breweries or cideries from across the state, and each is bringing four drink options — full-strength beers are very much included.

“I didn’t want the stigma of the festival to be like, ‘Oh, a Utah Beer Fest, and it’s only 5% beers,’” he said. “When folks … from around the world come, we need to be putting our best foot forward, or at least allowing the breweries to put their best foot forward because they’re the ones in the spotlight.”

With at least 80 different options, Hockman said there should be something for everyone. The event is beer-centric, of course, with plenty of brews ranging from pilsner to IPA. But there will also be Utah-made seltzers, a build-your-own-shandy concept from Moab Brewery, hard ciders, a mead from Etta Place and even two wines by Mountain West Cider’s winery business, MWCellars. 

“There’s definitely going to be plenty of beer, but then there’s also going to be those gluten-free options and those more fruit-forward options for folks,” Hockman said. 

New this summer is a change to the Deer Valley Pilsner, sold as the resort’s house beer. To start, it was made in partnership with Proper Brewing Co., which is based in Salt Lake City. 

This May, Hockman brought the beer even closer to home. Offset Bier, which originally opened in the Iron Horse district and now operates out of a bigger space near Quinn’s Junction, is the pilsner’s new brewer. Owner and beermaster Conor Brown will be at the festival and pouring samples for attendees to try.

“I think he is the best beer maker in the state of Utah, and he now has the capacity in his new location to make a crap load of beer,” said Hockman of the new partnership.

A few things have grown, like the number of retail vendors for people to peruse, and plans for a hammock lounge, but the biggest effort has gone into entertainment, Hockman said. Live music has always been part of the festival, but this year they’re bringing in two headliners. Rising Florida singer-songwriter Dylan Cotrone, who is currently touring with Sublime, will perform on Saturday, and Philadelphia American rock band G. Love & Special Sauce will headline Sunday.

“He was like my generation’s hipster in the late ’90s, early 2000s … brings a cool, funky vibe,” said Hockman about G. Love. “He does some stuff solo, but the big draw is when he gets with his guy Special Sauce, and they’re a duo. So we’ve got the creme de la creme of those guys on day two.”

As always, the main goal is to showcase the talent of Utah brewers, said Hockman.

“There are folks that are down to the nitty-gritty. Like, this is a passion project. I love it. There is no corner cut,” he said. 

Last year the festival grew by a day with the addition of a Brewmaster Dinner. Held the Friday evening before the weekend event, the five-course dinner pairs a beer from fan-favorite brewers with the creativity of the resort culinary team. 

This year, the dinner will be from 6-9 p.m. on Sept. 18. It features Offset Bier, Chappell Brewing, Moab Brewery, Roosters and Second Summit Cider, the five who won last year’s fan vote, said Hockman. Deer Valley’s pilsner by Offset Bier will be used as the toast beer. To welcome guests, Dendric Estate will serve its Dry Cut cider. Tickets are $180 per person.

“This is the one event where I get to actually choose what I want to offer. So I selfishly pick (beers) from the breweries,” Hockman said. “We want to up the decor in that room so it feels like when you walk in, it feels like a German pavilion at Oktoberfest.”

On Saturday and Sunday, when festivities will run from noon to 5 p.m., Hockman can be spotted in his Tyrolean or Bavarian hat, a felt hat decorated with beer festival pins he’s collected from around the world.

The confirmed participating breweries:

• Epic Brewing Company
• Etta Place Cidery & Taproom
• Uinta Brewing Company
• SaltFire Brewing Co.
• Offset Bier Co.
• Chappell Brewing
• Bohemian Brewery
• Heber Valley Brewing Company
• Rabbit’s Foot Brewing
• Bewilder Brewing Co.
• Talisman Brewing Co.
• Moab Brewery
• Mountain West Cider
• UTOG Brewing
• Templin Family Brewing
• Second Summit Cider Co.
• Salt Flats Brewing Co.
• Roosters Brewing Co.
• RoHa Brewing Project

Festival pricing is tiered so people can customize their experience: a $20 non-drinker package gets access to the event, but no drink tokens can be purchased. General admission alone is $45. The $70 Session Package includes admission and three taster tokens, while the $90 Reserve Package has five tokens and a commemorative mug. The $155 Imperial Package includes eight tokens, a mug, a festival T-shirt and VIP barbecue access.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit deervalley.com/things-to-do/activities/mountain-beer-festival.

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Artist Michelle Koskovich’s Heber City home is filled with flowers she never waters, blooming all year long. Unlike most gardeners, Koskovich doesn’t begin by burying a seed in soil. Instead, she takes her scissors to soda cans to create recycled aluminum flowers — an art style she refers to as “a-bloom-inum.”

Koskovich is currently preparing for her home’s equivalent of autumn. The color sprouting from countless vases and lining her studio walls will disappear when she sells many of her metal flowers at the third annual Wasatch Back Art Festival at Heber City Main Street Park next weekend, July 24-26.

The arts festival was organized by Heber City landscape photographer Johnny Adolphson and his wife, Sherry, to provide an outlet for local artists in a community where such opportunities are limited.

“It’s hard to get the exposure that you really need to connect,” Johnny said. “We created the Wasatch Back Art Festival hoping to make that connection between local artists and all the folks moving in.”

This year, the art festival will feature about 70 artists, including Koskovich. She’s participated in plenty of other festivals throughout the American southwest, including the Park Silly Sunday Market and the Utah Arts Festival, but it’s her first time at the Wasatch Back Art Festival.

Koskovich’s aluminum bouquets range from $40 to, in one instance, $600, purchased by a customer to whom money was no object.

“She didn’t even ask the price. She just came and said, ‘I want that,'” Koskovich said.

The tired adage about trash becoming treasure has never been truer. Oddly formed logs, chipped tea cups and rusted pots often become vases or foundations of larger art pieces incorporating Koskovich’s aluminum flowers. 

Koskovich finds many of her materials rummaging through dumpsters in alleyways or spotting interesting litter on the side of the road. Her greatest find so far is a wooden bench that looks like it belongs in an antique store.

“You wouldn’t believe what people put out,” she said.

Her friends and family know to never throw away a can, even though she already has several tubs full of them in her basement. They’ve also learned to wash them after Koskovich found mold and chewed gum in a few.

To create the head of a flower, Koskovich halves a can, then cuts patterns resembling petals. The aluminum keeps the scissors sharp, so she’s only had to use one pair in the eight years she’s been making them — other than the decorative scissors she sometimes uses to cut patterns.

“I’ve poked myself, but I’ve never cut myself,” she said. “Once you get the rigidness out of the can, it kind of becomes like a ribbon. It’s soft.”

Koskovich then ties the two halves together. She sometimes uses a contraption — a manual juicer affixed with nails — to punch several holes through the center, creating the look of a flower’s disk. 

“I used to have my dad do one-at-a-time holes. He quit on me,” she said.

Koskovich then sprays paint on a flower’s head, the mixed paints intensifying a metallic sheen. 

For the stem, she uses metal wire. Once, she accidentally used welding wire and found them “drooping” under their own weight the next morning, as if they hadn’t been watered.

Koskovich came up with aluminum flowers in 2018 while remodeling her former home in Durango, Colorado. The mailbox was “dilapidated,” so she made it an art piece sprouting with flowers. It’s been non-stop ever since.

Koskovich’s bouquets often delight libation-loving customers when they realize some of the flowers were originally beer cans. One customer stopped to smell the roses and sniffed out a Keystone Light with a greyhound’s precision.

Koskovich has lived in Heber City for two years, and the lack of local recycling services has given her even more reason to continue repurposing her garbage.

Koskovich has enjoyed art her whole life, but ironically, she’s never been much of a gardener.

“I think (I was a florist) in a past life. Or just crazy,” she joked. “I’m pretty convinced that’s what it is.”

Koskovich creates custom pieces and can be reached at mkoskovich@me.com.

The Wasatch Back Art Festival runs from noon to 6 p.m. on July 24 and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on July 25-26. Admission is free. Beyond artists selling work, there will also be performances by local musicians. Learn more at wasatchbackartfestival.com.

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Some kids participated in soccer or chess clubs in elementary school, but Ryan Shupe spent his free time recording albums and touring. 

Ryan’s father, Ted, formed the PeeWee Pickers youth band in 1979, inspired by his son’s fiddling talent. As a member of the PeeWee Pickers, Ryan toured Europe and even played before President Ronald Reagan gave an address to the Utah Republican Party in 1982 during a picnic in Hooper.

The band was so prominent in Utah’s bluegrass scene that Shupe, now the frontman of Ogden band Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand, is still recognized as a PeeWee Picker.

“When I got introduced to (Grammy-winning musician Alison Krauss), … she was like, ‘Ryan Shupe from the Peewee Pickers. I know you guys!’” he said.

The PeeWee Pickers was far from the only band Ted organized or mentored. His fingerprints are all over Utah’s bluegrass scene, even in Wallsburg, where the 12th annual TedFest music festival will be held Friday through Sunday in his honor. Ted died in October in West Valley City at the age of 86. This year’s festival will continue, organized by Ryan.

Ted began TedFest in 2014 to celebrate all genres of roots music: Americana, folk, bluegrass, gospel and more. 

“(One year,) we had a Uyghur fellow who was an incredible flamenco guitarist. Every year, we’ve had this Latin band … There are bagpipes sometimes, and rock,” said Jamis Johnson, Ted’s bandmate in swing ensemble Swing Creek. “But it’s all based on acoustic music.”

TedFest, Johnson said, is a way to show that genres that have fallen out of the mainstream are still alive and well.

“I just went recently to the Gallivan Center where Hot House West (Swing Orchestra) was playing. …. There were hundreds of dancers, and I would say they seemed like they were all in their 20s,” Johnson said. “This is an older form of music that’s being rediscovered by kids.”

At this year’s TedFest, each of the roughly 20 performing bands will share some thoughts about Ted during their sets. Johnson remembered Ted as gregarious, even when dealing with the countless issues that can arise as a touring musician.

“(One time,) Ted was driving up to a gig in Park City, and the bass fell off the roof of his car. Somebody picked up the pieces, and Ted had his bass rebuilt,” Johnson said. “It sounded like hell, but he still played that bass all the way up to the end.”

Ted first learned upright bass as a kid so he could play in his mother’s dance band, Merle Shupe and the Star Dusters.

Johnson described Ted’s mother as “a real force.”  Two weeks before she died, Merle visited Johnson’s home. Johnson played “All of Me” on the piano, and, although she couldn’t even walk up the stairs by herself, Merle insisted on getting up when she heard his playing.

“She said, ‘Ted! Ted! Get me up. This guy, he thinks he can play “All of Me.”’ So Ted took her over to the piano, and she sat there and she played ‘All of Me,’ just banging it out,” Johnson said.

Like his mother, Ted was also a musical force of nature. Every day, he would wake his children two hours before school so they’d have time to practice their instruments.

“I wonder, would I be (a professional musician) without my dad? Probably not,” Ryan said. 

He added, “When (the PeeWee Pickers) got older, then he started another kid band for my other siblings. And then, he did that again for another band and another band and another band.”

About 35 musicians Ted mentored attended his funeral. 

“He really liked finding these young musicians and putting them into an ensemble and teaching them how to play and getting them out and playing shows,” Ryan said.

Ryan said Ted’s passion stemmed from wanting to share the “gift of music” with his children and other young people. Now, TedFest carries on that mission — and ensures its namesake will be forever remembered.

“Down the road, people will say, ‘What is this TedFest?’” Ryan said. “It’s started by the guy that they dubbed the father of Utah bluegrass music.”

See the full lineup at tedfestmusic.com. Tickets benefit Vibrant America, the nonprofit Ted founded to preserve folk and roots music.

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In a town where dogs share the trails with hikers and bikers, a festival dedicated entirely to man’s best friend seems like a natural fit.

That’s what Jenn Lewis, chair of the Home Builders Association’s community service committee, thought when she first organized the Bark City Festival four years ago.

The doggone fun returns to Willow Creek Park on Saturday, bringing together pet owners, local businesses, nonprofit organizations and animal welfare groups for a day of activities, demonstrations and community fundraising.

Lewis said the event has steadily evolved from its beginnings as a small fundraiser, and it’s now hosted by the Park City Area Home Builders Association, Basin Recreation and Premier Pet Lodge.

The festival began with a simple question: How could the Home Builders Association expand its community impact beyond its signature Showcase of Homes event?

“The Showcase of Homes committee has been successful for a really long time,” Lewis said. “But as an advocate for community service, I wanted to put ourselves out there in the community based off of what we could do for other local nonprofits.”

While the annual home tour highlights luxury residences, Lewis wanted a project that directly benefited charitable organizations and brought together a broader cross-section of the community.

“Park City is full of dogs, right?” Lewis said. “And I love dogs, and everybody loves dogs. We were kind of doing a round table discussion, and we were like, what if we did a dog festival?”

As a nod to their group as builders, that first festival centered on a dog house building competition, with Home Builders Association members constructing elaborate miniature homes that were auctioned off to raise money for local causes.

Four years later, the event looks a little different, but has the same goal: to give back to the community. Proceeds help support nonprofit and charitable efforts throughout the area, with funds distributed to a variety of causes.

“We’ve kept the funds so that we can continue to give back into the community,” Lewis said. “Whether it be buying coffee for the nurses, the essential workers at the hospital, or serving food for the homeless in Salt Lake or donating books to the second graders. We keep giving it back into the community because that’s what is important to me.”

What started with roughly 10 vendors and about 200 attendees now attracts around 40 vendors and hundreds of visitors, Lewis said, and she estimates attendance approached 600 people last year.

“It’s been nice watching it grow,” she said.

Visitors this year can expect a packed schedule from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with activities for people and pets. The festival will feature live music, food vendors, face painting and balloon art. The Willow Creek Dog Park, of course, will be open with its agility course and popular pond.

The event also includes a Dirty Dog 5K Fun Run from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., which uses Willow Creek Park’s existing trail system. Lewis said that was one of the perks of merging her festival with Basin Recreation’s former Bark in the Park event. The $28 cost of race entry is one way the organizers fundraise for the free event and other giving opportunities. 

One of the day’s biggest draws is expected to be the Summit County K-9 demonstration, from 2 to 3 that afternoon. The presentation showcases working dogs and their handlers while giving attendees a behind-the-scenes look at canine training.

A dedicated children’s area will offer face painting, games and activities throughout the day, Lewis said.

Beyond the entertainment, the festival serves as a gathering place for many of the organizations involved in animal welfare across northern Utah. Groups such as Nuzzles & Co, Fetch Cares and Utah Basset Rescue regularly participate, often bringing adoptable dogs and educational resources.

The event also welcomes some less expected animal ambassadors. Representatives from Avian Sanctuary and Protection have attended in past years with rescued birds.

“Even though that’s the craziest combination, people think, why would you bring birds to a dog event?” Lewis said. “It seems to work.”

Local builders, real estate professionals, health and wellness providers and other community organizations are expected to participate, reflecting the festival’s broader community focus, Lewis said.

Dogs are welcome throughout the festival, though they must remain on leash while wandering the vendor booths. The adjacent dog park and pond will continue to serve as designated off-leash areas.

For Lewis, the event’s popularity speaks to something deeply embedded in Park City’s identity.

“Who doesn’t have a dog in Park City?” she said. “We are amongst other wildlife, nature. We’ve accepted that as Park City locals. We know what comes with the territory of living here … and a dog comes with that; that is a part of our nature.”

It’s an ideology that, as a dog owner and lover herself, Lewis has come to love. 

“I grew up in Ogden, and I had never seen so many dogs when I first got here. I was shocked,” she said. “I’ve been here for 22 years, and I can say that I don’t know a single person that doesn’t have a dog. It’s just part of our DNA.”

That connection feels particularly meaningful this year. Lewis recently lost Roscoe, her blue heeler mix and longtime companion.

“It’s devastating. They’re part of your family and your lifestyle and your decisions,” she said. “I still have one dog, and it’s hard. We’re both grieving still.”

Planning this dog festival while grieving has been emotional, she said, and Saturday might be hard for her, but it has also reinforced why the event matters.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Lewis said. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

For more information, and to register for the 5K run, visit barkcityfestival.com.

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The McPolin Barn hosted their Scarecrow Festival Saturday afternoon, September 23, 2017. Attendees built scarecrows, painted pumpkins, had their faces painted and enjoyed refreshments. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Want to see the full gallery? Check it out here.

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Autumn Aloft took off from the North 40 Fields Saturday morning, September 16, 2017, with clear skies, gentle breezes and 35 degree temperatures. The annual festival featured 24 balloons launching in to the sky. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-Autumn-Aloft-2017/

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The Christian Center of Park City and the Park City/Summit County Arts Council put on the Latino Arts Festival at the Park City Library Saturday evening, June 3, 2017. The festival featured an afternoon full of live music, food, and more, as well as a free screening of the Sundance Film Festival’s film “Cesar’s Last Fast.” A variety of traditional dances were performed near the end of the celebration. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-Latino-Arts-Festival/

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Recycle Utah hosted their annual Water Festival at St. Mary’s Catholic Church Thursday morning, April 27, 2017. Fourth grade students from across the county spent the day learning about the importance of water, how we can keep it clean and how we all use it in our everyday lives. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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Chabad of Park City hosted their Grand Hanukkah Celebration at the St. Regis at Deer Valley Wednesday evening, Dec. 28, 2016, with live entertainment, kosher snacks, menorah lighting and more. In addition to the festivities, the kitchen at the St. Regis launched its first-ever kosher dining program this holiday season, too, offering guests and locals kosher cuisine between Dec. 21st – Dec. 30th. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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Coalville hosted their annual Lights Festival Parade down Main Street Saturday evening, Dec. 3, 2016. The town turned off it’s lights and crowded around Main Street, watching as Santa and Mrs. Claus waved from the back of a pick-up truck, and as vehicles passed decorated to the max with Christmas lights. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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