Pure Project & North Park Collaborate On Hidden Gold

This morning I have a new California collaboration can coming soon from Pure Project in San Diego, CA.

This is Hidden Gold and it will be a collaboration with North Park Beer (also in San Diego). The beer will be a murky IPA that hits 6.9%-AbV and it will be packaged in 16oz cans. Stay tuned here for full release details.  zzubreebym 

About Pure Project:

It all started back in 2013

when friends from San Diego, Jesse Pine and Mat Robar were on a backpacking trip with friends in the Rocky Mountains. Now if you have ever been backpacking, there is not a lot distracting you out there, so you tend to talk a lot on the trail and that is where it started, on the slow climb to the top of a 12,253 ft mountain in Colorado…

Jesse had recently moved to Costa Rica and was starting to become acquainted with the country. The conversation flowed from the scenic vistas he had seen to hidden beaches, exotic local fruits and eventually settled on beer oddly enough. You see at that time in Costa Rica, there weren’t many options for beer other than mass-produced local lagers. That being said, Jesse had attended the country’s 2nd annual craft beer festival and saw that it was starting to gain some traction, not just with American expats looking for a taste of home, but also with the local population.

And so, over the next few days in the woods,

the idea took shape to open a craft brewery in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica and Manuel Antonio Brewing Company was born, Pura Vida!

Fast forward two years after raising money, brewing in the jungle, and going through the “eventful” process of starting the business in Costa Rica and we had a decision to make. Try to make the brewery work in an area that did not have the right infrastructure (wastewater treatment, cold transportation…etc) or move the business back to the states. As fate would have it, the weekend we decided not to move forward in Costa Rica, we got a call about a space opening up in Miramar with a prebuilt brewing system that would allow us to get up and running quickly and it made the decision pretty clear.

Within a month we had a lease signed and the brewery was moving back to San Diego.

Now, even though the brewery was moving back to San Diego, we decided to keep a lot of the elements that made Costa Rica and the initial brewery concept unique. Things such as using pure, unique, and local ingredients whenever possible, taking care of the environment, and telling a story of the ingredients and process along with the beer itself. Although we were no longer in the jungle, we wanted to bring the Pura Vida spirit back to San Diego and that is how we came to settle on the name, Pure Project for the new brewery.

We had another big decision to make however, because we needed an actual brewmaster. We probably could have scraped by in Costa Rica home brewing for a while, but in one of the top beer destinations in the world, we knew we needed a professional.

Enter Winslow Sawyer, an award-winning brewer from the Santa Cruz Mountains. Winslow stood out to us immediately because he was a great culture fit. With a strong knowledge and background in agriculture, he was very connected to the ingredients and did his senior thesis at UC Santa Cruz on sustainability in the brewing industry. Winslow jumped on board in late 2015 and quickly began to build out our initial tap list.

As Winslow was hard at work on recipe design, the rest of the team set to work building out the taproom and dialing in how we wanted the business to run.

First and foremost on our list was a mantra that we used back in the Costa Rica days: Details Matter. From the ingredients, to how the beer is brewed, to the atmosphere in the tap room, to the way the bartender greets you, to the way you interact with the brand online, all the way down to the way the bathroom looks and smells.

To this day we still print the following on all of our cans and bottles: “For those who believe that quality ingredients and attention to detail matter. From grain to glass.”

It all matters.

About North Park Beer:

It was a long and winding road that brought North Park Beer Co. out of the garage and into the spotlight. Kelsey McNair, our Head Brewer, and Proprietor, arrived in San Diego 20 years ago to live the California dream and design video games with his friends. However, it wasn’t long before his love for cuisine, chemistry, and craft found an outlet in the city’s fledgling independent brewing scene. That exciting new world teemed with bold-flavored beer and inspired talent, and when Kelsey’s homebrewing career began in 2004 its path was nothing short of meteoric. Soon his Hop-Fu! IPA had become the single most award-winning homebrew recipe in history and in the most competitive category — the American IPA. Over the next decade, the awards accumulated. The name North Park Beer Co. was established and run out of the garage at Kelsey’s North Park residence while plans for the commercial-scale brewery took shape. What followed was an uphill battle spanning several years to raise capital, find the right location, and build out a brand new taproom and brewing facility. Enduring setback after setback, Kelsey and his wife, Amanda, persisted. They left behind careers as game developers to fulfill their dream of opening a community-focused brewpub dedicated to the preservation of Kelsey’s passion for craft, quality, and hospitality. In June of 2016, North Park Beer Co. opened its doors and has since become a fitting tribute to its namesake neighborhood. It is a warm and comfortable place for friends and neighbors to socialize while enjoying enjoy world-class beer and delicious food. We hope you visit us soon!