In its nearly four years of existence, Intergalactic Brewing Company (9715 Carroll Centre Road, Miramar) has stayed under the radar within the local suds solar system while also racking up an impressive fleet of devout followers. Many of those fans come back with great regularity due to the plethora of beers owner and brewmaster Alex Van Horne pumps out. His is a great and varied portfolio further fueled by a Red Shirt series of experimental and one-off brews. As one would expect from such a prolific brewing operation, Van Horne’s has numerous new beers slated for debut at Intergalactic’s four-year anniversary on the weekend of April 21-23.
There are four to be exact, all of which are collaborative projects. Van Horne was inspired by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s Beer Camp, which has seen the country’s third-largest craft brewing interest brew nationally released collaboration beers with dozens of notable contemporaries across the country. In keeping with his brewery’s sci-fi motif, Van Horne calls his smaller-scale homage “Space Camp”. Three of the four beers it yielded were created with San Diego brewers while the fourth is a tandem undertaking of Van Horne and Detroit’s River Rouge Brewing Company. Van Horne befriended the owner of the latter, helping them get their Michigan nanobrewery (which is about to celebrate two years in operation) off the ground, and each year they brew special beers for each other’s anniversary.
The following are notes on Intergalactic’s quartet of anniversary collaborations.
- Breakfast Before Impact of Giant Hurtling Space Rock of Doom Imperial Coffee Porter: Brazilian coffee from Bird Rock Coffee Roasters gives a caffeinated kick to this robust brew designed with the head brewer from La Jolla’s Rock Bottom pub.
- Monocles & Elbow Patches Required Imperial ESB: A higher-alcohol version of an English-style extra special bitter conceived with Hillcrest Brewing Company gets its boozy boost from Golden Promis and traditional flavor from English specialty malts.
- Star Date 4.2 The Answer to Life, the Universe & Everything Divided by 10 Double IPA: Not surprisingly, the out-of-towners at River Rouge went the hoppy route with this San Diego collab, which is hopped with Azacca and Falconer’s Flight.
- We Want to Punch You in the Face for Liking this Hazy IPA [It’s Not An IPA]: Created with fellow Miramar nanobrewery, 2kids Brewing Company, this Mosaic, Citra and Vermont yeast strain-infused Northeast-style offering pokes fun at the current “it-style” among American beer nerds.
In addition to being available on-tap starting Friday, April 21, the beers will packaged in 16-ounce cans and be sold as part of variety four-packs. Those will go on sale on Saturday, April 22 as part of the “Four Beers for Four Years” festivities, which will wrap up on Sunday, April 23.