Tenaya Creek was established in 1999 by Tim Etter and his brothers and sisters. Tim's background in brewing started in his college days at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In early 1993, his roommate at the time introduced him to the art of making beer. This smalltime hobby of making beer in a tiny apartment blossomed into a fulltime career, brewing commercially. Towards the end of 1993, Tim attended UC Davis in Northern California to study Fermentation Science. Upon returning to Salt Lake, he aligned himself with a startup brewery called Uinta Brewing Company. The concept for this startup was to brew the freshest beer available in the State of Utah while limiting the alcohol percentage to 3.2 by weight (4% by volume). It was wildly successful, providing locally made beer for the ski areas and the many tourists that visited Utah.