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Pie & Beer Day Is the Summer's Best Unknown Holiday

Non-Mormon Utahns have combined two of life's greatest treasures for a wondrous holiday. 

Joe Raedle, Getty Images

The time period between the Fourth of July and Halloween is a dry spell in the American holiday calendar. Labor Day, yeah — but isn’t that just a bonus Saturday, wedged into a Monday? Maybe the solution is for the rest of the states to move into Utah, as today it celebrates Pie & Beer Day.

The relatively new holiday was created in response to the Mormon holiday Pioneer Day (which come to think of it sounds suspiciously like Pie & Beer Day …). The original holiday celebrates the first group of Mormons who entered Utah on July 24, 1847. Shops and businesses across the state shutdown for the day to observe it. Pie & Beer Day used to exist in the margins so people could come together and enjoy the day in non-Mormon ways — Mormons abstain from drinking, not pie — but the tongue-in-cheek counterculture celebration has been gaining traction as a semi-legit holiday. Because let me repeat: It’s founded on the principles of pie and beer.

The holiday is building buzz in Utah and could potentially gain traction in other places that have large Mormon populations. Can it be too long before Pie & Beer Day is the official holiday of the middle of the summer? Does pie also include pizza? (Pizza) Pie & Beer Day?! Wake us up in 2024 once this glorious day is the Christmas in July we’ve always wanted.