2 Kids Brewing brings a San Diego beer brand back from the dead

It was curtains for Intergalactic Brewing. The small Miramar brewery poured its last pints last summer, and closed up shop. Glasses were raised and tributes made, and not long after, founder and brewer Alex Van Horne moved to Kansas to take a job brewing for Wichita’s River City Brewing Company. San Diego was officially down one science-fiction-inspired beer brand.

But like Starbuck, Ripley, and Spock before it, we hadn’t seen the last of Intergalactic. Van Horne’s friends and neighbor at 2 Kids Brewing Company have resurrected the brand under a friendly licensing deal, and plans to move forward serving its award-winning recipes alongside their own.

2 Kids is best known as the first brewery to open in what is now craft beverage hub Miralani Makers District, a pair of neighboring industrial parks that has grown to include eight alcohol producers and several restaurants. When it opened in 2014, Intergalactic was one of its closest brewery neighbors, another small brewery startup with limited resources and similar brewing philosophies. The entrepreneurs became close friends, collaborating frequently and traveling together. “We were never associated commercially,” says Robert Dufau, who operates 2 Kids with his wife, brewer Samantha Dufau, “but we were about as close as two breweries can be.”

So while it may prove a solid business move for both parties, the licensing grew out of the friendship. “Alex asked us if we would try brewing The Cake Is A Lie to see if people were still interested.” People seem to have been. Even as we spoke, a pair of former Intergalactic regulars showed up, and were thrilled to find the no longer extinct beer on tap.

The Cake Is a Lie is Intergalactic’s fan favorite coffee cream ale, made with lactose and sometimes flavored with macadamia nut or peanut brittle. 2 Kids offered several variants during a promotional release in February, to encouraging response. It followed up in May along with a fuller selection of Intergalactic beers for a May the Fourth event. The Star Wars themed party (“May the Fourth be with you”) had been an annual event at Intergalactic, and with Van Horne in attendance, the party continued in the 2 Kids parking lot.

Following all the positive fan feedback, Dufau says 2 kids plans to make Intergalactic a permanent presence on the beer menu. “We’re going to try to keep a couple of the beers around all the time,” he says, including crowler fills and distribution. The Intergalactic selection will rotate, as do most 2 Kids beers. “Our whole thing is having new stuff on all the time,” says Dufau, “It’s part of the reason people come in. We have a new beer on more or less every week.”

That said, he acknowledges they’ll have to add new tap faucets to keep that up. In addition to ensuring Intergalactic’s katra lives on, 2 Kids has to reserve handles for its growing number of core beers, including perennial medal winner Poppycock ESB, recent gold medal winner Five Finger Discount German lager, and the terrific fundraiser beer, Brainstorm Brown Ale.

Meanwhile, though Van Horne is glad to see fans’ appreciation, he’s ruled out re-launching Intergalactic either here or in Wichita. “I can see our partnership with 2kids continuing so long as it benefits them. Intergalactic’s fans are in San Diego; that is where I want those beers to be. If I were to do something here, in Kansas, it would be completely new.”