Urban Artifact
Well, it was Sunday… So I decided to go to church. Or rather, the basement of a church that has been turned into a brewery. Welcome to Urban Artifact! And I must apologize here, I forgot to take a picture of the front of the building so, I don’t have a picture of the church. The good news is, Google has done the job for me!
And I went there with 1 very specific purpose, and ended up walking out with more beer in me than I had planned. Today was the day I finally gave in and tried… Pickle. Yes, Pickle. A Pickle beer. Beer that was made in a similar fashion to pickles.
See? Pickle. Now, I know what you are probably thinking, because I thought it, too… “Did they make this beer with pickle juice?” The short answer is no. I think this would more accurately be referred to as “Cucumber and Dill” beer. That is to say, it is a beer made with cucumber and dill, two of the key ingredients to a dill pickle, but not pickle juice at all.
And I just want to say, this beer was actually pretty damn good. I was amazed at what I was drinking. It was light, and fairly refreshing, and I honestly forgot that I was drinking a beer. As you can see in the key chain picture above, this comes in at 4.3% ABV, so not only is it light and refreshing, it is easy on the alcohol, so you can have a few without getting drunk. I didn’t get a heavy cucumber flavor, but the dill was definitely there, and it worked. The folk at Urban Artifact are damned wizards! Because nothing about this sounded good to me. And by the time I left, it was perhaps my number 2 beer of the 3 I had. It would have been number 1, but dammit if the next beer didn’t leave me in a happy place.
This beer is a definite one to try, if it is available in your area. If you aren’t ready to commit to a full 6 pack, perhaps see if it is available as part of one of those build your own six pack ordeals. This is a beer I will swear by. A small caveat is in order though. I tried this on draft at the brewery, I can not attest to how it holds up in can format. Although, I do have a single can of the spicy variant of this bad boy… I’ll drink it later, since I’m already going to be discussing three beers here.
I took a picture of the main page of the tap list here. And I want to be straight with you here, if it weren’t for monetary limitations, and the fact that I had to be somewhere later, I would have had every last one of these beers, even if I have had 6 of these beers previously. For now, I want you to focus on 15.
I was failing on my picture game today… this turned out blurrier than I had hoped. But this, is the Keypunch Salsa. I honestly feel kinda bad for including this one, since your only opportunity to try it would be to hit the taproom. I would like to point out right from the beginning here, that Keypunch is one of my favorite beers. I first tried it as part of a series of Key Lime beers several years back, and I absolutely adored it. Today when I saw the small batch variant … well, this was an obvious choice for number 2 on my beers to try today list.
I do not think I can even begin to describe how amazing this beer was. I love spicy stuff, so right off the bat I saw “serrano pepper” and I was sold. As the guy at the bar said, this was like drinking a salsa. If this had been served with a side of Tostitos it would have been glorious. Once again, It was a beer coming in at 4.3% ABV. And at that level, I would have drank this all day and been able to die a happy man. It was spicy, but not too spicy. It definitely had a hit from the serranos, but everything came together in a delightful package. I’m not one to do growlers, but if I could have left with a growler of this, I think I would have managed to down the growler by the end of the night. I mentioned at my last trip to Third Eye that I tried one of my favorite beers while there. Well… this is my new reigning champion. It is like a 30 minute drive to get there, but I am 100% ready to drive down there again the next day that they are open to get more of this divine beverage.
This may be the greatest thing to come out of a church ever.
Okay, my picture game was on point for this one.
Honestly, I feel bad for poor old Resh here. It had to contend with two AMAZING beers. On any other day, this would have been a great beer. And it was a great beer. But this fell as a peasant before two kings. Well, maybe not a peasant. Perhaps minor royalty? A duke among beers perhaps. This was a tasty concoction serving up one of my favorite fruit flavors. I love me some mango. At 7.5% ABV, this comes in a little heavier than the other two. It’s a great sour through and through. I would expect nothing less from the master brewers at Urban Artifact. This was also the 2nd highest ABV I consumed today. It came in second, because there was literally another brewery across the street that I had to try, and it had a 12%-ish beer.
So yeah, at the end of the day. Urban Artifact is a brewery that is worth a visit. Not only is it in an old church, but they offer up some damn fine brews.
