{"id":15834,"date":"2016-12-02T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=15834"},"modified":"2016-12-02T08:20:56","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T16:20:56","slug":"beer-of-the-week-societe-the-urchin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2016\/12\/02\/beer-of-the-week-societe-the-urchin\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer of the Week: Societe The Urchin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Urchin barrel-aged cranberry sour ale from Societe Brewing Company<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From the Beer Writer: <\/strong>Each week for the past several years, I\u2019ve made a point of highlighting what I believe are exceptional beers produced by San Diego County breweries. Because I not only write about the beer industry, but am a part of it, there have been a handful of times when a Beer of the Week has come from a brewery I\u2019m employed by. I understand the perceived conflict there, so I attempt to avoid that whenever possible, and am always sure to disclose my affiliation when doing so. But this week, the origin-story and humanitarian purpose behind my featured beer selection is such that I feel compelled to share both even though it\u2019s manufactured by my employer, Societe Brewing Company<\/strong><\/a>. Allow me to go into detail. Each year, Societe holds a holiday food-drive. In its first year, this effort amassed just under 300 pounds of food. The addition of annual incentivizing ripples in the drive increased its effectiveness to the point where, last year, the brewery collected nearly 5,000 pounds of food. Happy but not yet satisfied, brewmaster Travis Smith<\/strong> and company devised a new plan for 2016, centered around the release of a new blended, wine barrel-aged, cranberry sour ale, Societe The Urchin<\/strong>. From now through December 31, this tart, fruity, tannic offering is available in 500-milliliter bottles for an admittedly exorbitant $50. Too rich for your blood? There\u2019s a much more affordable and meaningful alternative. Simply bring in 50 pounds of food from the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s list of needed items (click here for that list<\/strong><\/a>) and you can get a bottle of The Urchin for just five dollars. The drive started on November 21 and, within four days, Societe had surpassed its 2015 total, delivering more than 5,000 pounds of edible sustenance to the Food Bank. As of today, total donations stand at 8,588 pounds. It\u2019s a wonderful case of the goodness of local craft-beer flowing beyond the glass to make a positive difference for those in need in our community, and I\u2019m happy to shine a light on it in hopes of maximizing that effort. Happy holidays!<\/p>\n

From the Brewer: <\/strong>\u201cThe Feral beer program at Societe revolves around blending and, to a lesser extent, experimentation. The Urchin arose out of an experiment loading cranberry pur\u00e9e into one of our red-wine barrels. We liked the flavor enough that we decided to take the experiment to the next level by fruiting several more barrels, and the base to The Urchin was born. This first batch of The Urchin spent between 10\u00a0and 24 months in barrels before making it into this\u00a0final\u00a0delicious, festive Feral blend of fruit and funk. With cranberries being a favorite holiday flavor, and The Urchin being my favorite blend to come out of our barrel room so far, this is\u00a0the perfect beer to go along with our annual Holiday Food Drive to incentivise the donation of needed items\u00a0to the San Diego Food Bank.<\/span>\u201d\u2014Travis Smith, Brewmaster, Societe Brewing Company<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Beer Writer: Each week for the past several years, I\u2019ve made a point of highlighting what I believe are exceptional beers produced by San Diego County breweries. Because I not only write about the beer industry, but am a part of it, there have been a handful of times when a Beer of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[367,368,369,1],"tags":[1353,51,376,1461,442,2305,1507,391,3398,2484,3396,2306,3395,2483,3394,926,1439,3399,2494,276,1632,3397,117,1637],"class_list":{"0":"post-15834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-beer-events","8":"category-beer-news","9":"category-beer-styles","10":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","11":"tag-sdbeer","12":"tag-barrel-aged","13":"tag-beer","14":"tag-beer-of-the-week","15":"tag-brandon-hernandez","16":"tag-christmas","17":"tag-clairemont-mesa","18":"tag-craftbeer","19":"tag-cranberry-sour","20":"tag-feral-beer","21":"tag-food-drive","22":"tag-holidays","23":"tag-holidaze","24":"tag-indiebeer","25":"tag-jacobs-cushman","26":"tag-kearny-mesa","27":"tag-san-diego","28":"tag-san-diego-county","29":"tag-san-diego-food-bank","30":"tag-societe","31":"tag-sour-ale","32":"tag-the-urchin","33":"tag-travis-smith","34":"tag-west-coaster","35":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/image1.jpg?fit=1000%2C1414&ssl=1","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-47o","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}