There’s something that happens when a beer-centric business owner and their suds devotee staffers not only order beer, but forge relationships with the individuals who brew them. And not just in a handshake-and-a-chat way. I’m talking cramming a bunch of key personnel into an RV and driving around the country to visit breweries and secure some of their finest wares for special tappings back home. That is the level of nth-degree beer-geekism that makes it possible for attendees of Urge Gastropub’s (16761 Bernardo Center Drive, Rancho Bernardo) annual anniversary weekends to choose from such a varied list of next-level specialty beers, some of the best of which are concoctions brewed especially for the North County establishment by members of the local brewing community.
This year’s festivities will take place tomorrow through Sunday, July 31, and feature over a half-dozen venue-specific beers from AleSmith Brewing Company, Mother Earth Brew Co., Pure Project Brewing, Rip Current Brewing Company, Saint Archer Brewery (in collaboration with Urge-owned Mason Ale Works in Oceanside) and Toolbox Brewing Company. They are as follows:
- AleSmith/Urge Pappy Speedway Barrel-Aged Coffee Imperial Stout
- AleSmith/Urge Velvet Echo Barrel-Aged Coffee Imperial Stout
- Mother Earth Very Bad Things Bourbon Barrel-Aged Scotch Ale served on Nitro
- Pure Project Oni Triple IPA
- Rip Current sURGEing Currents Session IPA
- Saint Archer/Mason Your Goat Tart Saison with Peaches
- Toolbox Pinkies Up Sour Saison with Plum, Lemongrass & Kaffir Lime Leaves
A pre-anniversary tasting of some of the above beers proved a no-brainer, AleSmith/Urge Velvet Speedway and its new variants still taste exquisite. Velvet Speedway was originally brewed for Urge last year. Building off AleSmith’s venerable Speedway Stout, it was brewed with coffee and aged in 23-year-old Evan Williams bourbon barrels, then dosed with a rye whiskey-infused Madagascar vanilla bean tincture and given extra java punch care of bourbon barrel-aged Jamaican Blue Mountain cold-brew from local roasters, Mostra Coffee. This year’s Velvet Echo (the same recipe aged in the same barrels used for the original Velvet Speedway) and Pappy Speedway (aged 15 months in a 20-year Pappy Van Winkle barrel from Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace Distillery, then dosed with Kona coffee) offer new riffs on this complicated but not convoluted concept. But reveler cannot live on 12% sippers alone. To that end, there are a number of more sessionable and normal-strength beers on this list, which was built by Urge manager Bri Kling.
Going back to personal relationships, hers helped her score a number of harder-to-procure treats such as a milk chocolate porter from Stone Brewing aged in a combination of reposado tequila, red wine and bourbon barrels; and Knotty Sparkles, a double IPA from Three Weavers Brewing Company made extra glam with the addition of edible gold sparkles. It’s a lily-gilding technique Kling first saw Three Weavers head brewer Alexandra Nowell employ at a Brewbies festival. After forming a friendship with Nowell over several beers, Kling pleaded for the sparkle-treatment and, as a result, this is the “first and last time” one of Three Weavers’ beer will feature this form of bling outside of the breast-cancer festival arena.
Then there’s Pinkies Up, which Kling had a big hand in. A drinking buddy of Toolbox owner Spencer Peters and friend of the company’s head brewer Ehren Schmidt, she approached them about brewing a beer for Urge’s anniversary. Through many a conversation over many a beer, they decided to brew a pair of rustic saisons and oak age them with wild yeast starins dosed in at different percentages over four- and six-month periods, respectively. Kling helped dispatch 350 pounds of plums for this recipe, which also extracted flavor from lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaves. The result is a bracingly sour, yet highly drinkable beer that smells like a verdant Life-Saver and tastes like some electrified version of pink lemonade.
There will be 51 total beers on-tap over the weekend, with a few being subbed out on different days. When asked about some of the more interesting selections on the list, Kling points to a version of Intergalactic Brewing Company’s coffee cream ale, The Cake is a Lie, brewed with a twist to bring forth a peanut-brittle character; Knotty Sparkles; and a key lime-flavored Kolsch called Killbox from Washougal, Washington-based Doomsday Brewing Company. You know, your everyday types of beers…at least for one enchanted weekend.