By Travis Barton | [email protected]

Beer week offered not only potential prizes to those who completed the pub crawl, but also a chance to benefit the Sugar House Boys and Girls Club.

Saturday, May 21 marked the 2nd Annual Sugar House Pub Crawl where the Sugar House Chamber joined forces with 10 bars to celebrate American Craft Beer Week. The event was sponsored by KRCL 90.9 and Salt Lake City Weekly.

“It’s been a bigger hit than we expected it to be,” Summer Shumway of the Sugar House Chamber said.

Shumway said a lot of “leg work” was put in by the Sugar House Chamber, Wasatch Brewery and Epic Brewing’s Ryan Kluh to make it happen.

Over 5,000 people marked on Facebook that they’d come to the pub crawl with all proceeds going to the Sugar House Boys and Girls Club. A portion of the funds will be used to purchase classroom supplies from Lakeshore Learning.

“It’s one of our busiest events…It’s a lot of fun to see so many people come into Sugar House,” Shumway said.

The 10 watering holes for this year’s event were Campfire Lounge, The Tap Room, Fiddlers Elbow, SugarHouse Pub, The Annex by Epic Brewing, Mellow Mushroom Salt Lake City, Wasatch Brew Pub, The Bar in Sugarhouse, The RUIN and Trolley Wing Company.

Participants who grabbed a “passport” and had it stamped at all 10 pubs were entered into a drawing for prizes. Bars were opened at noon with passports required to be turned in before 5 p.m. to be eligible for the drawing. No requirements were made for the order in which people attended each pub.

“We didn’t want mass amounts of people going to all the same places at the same time, this way it spreads everyone out,” Shumway said.

The grand prize was two tickets to the Idaho Brew Fest which included accommodations Other prizes were brew master dinners and gift cards for best individual and group photos with use of #iheartsugarhouse and #sugarhousepubcrawl. There were more gift card prizes or general swag for the best individual and group costume.

Tents and local rock group, Quiet Oaks, set up shop at Monument Plaza with Quiet Oaks performing from 4 to 6 p.m.

Shumway said their goal as a chamber is to bring people into Sugar House so people could see what Sugar House has to offer to the community.

“The pub crawl ended up being a real huge success in that regard,” Shumway said.

With thousands of people converging on Sugar House for one day, Shumway said she thinks it’s the distinctiveness of the area that draws in so many people.

“So many people just really love Sugar House and appreciate how unique it is,” Shumway said. “A lot of people didn’t even realize we had that many bars or pubs right there in such a small area…we just really think a big part of the success is that people do just love the area.”