Burgeon Beer Company

Burgeon and SeaTrees Reclaim the Sea.

There aren’t many things more closely associated with San Diego than craft beer and the ocean. So it makes perfect sense that a local brewery like Burgeon Beer Company would team up with a nonprofit and use its brewing acumen to help protect the ocean ecosystem. After airing with SeaTrees, a group dedicated to helping restore the kelp forests just off the Southern California coast, Burgeon has concocted Reclaim the Sea, a 6.5% ABV West Coast IPA. Some of the proceeds from sales will go toward helping to grow more kelp. The beer itself features guava, grapefruit, and citrus notes from an abundance of hops, which are balanced out by a malty finish to make for an easy-drinking IPA.

“Since this underwater reforestation project focuses on SoCal’s coastline, a West Coast IPA seemed like the perfect stylistic fit for our impactful collab,” says Burgeon co-founder and head brewer Anthony Tallman. “Citra, Strata, and Chinook hops provide super bright and punchy aromas and flavors with loads of tropical goodness.” The tropical hop profile was important to Tallman, as it represents the partnership with SeaTrees, whose goal of restoring kelp forests and other coastal ecosystems aims to do more than just protect the ocean. Giant kelp forests, mangroves, and other coastal watersheds remove carbon from the air effectively and naturally — and are even more effective than rainforests at doing so. To date, SeaTrees has restored and protected nearly 300,000 square-feet of kelp, along with more than 1.6 million mangroves and 35,000 square-feet of watershed, and have planted more than 9000 coral fragments to restore reefs.

According to Matthew Zirpolo, the brewery’s president and co-founder, the partnership arose naturally, through conversations among workers at Burgeon, “We first heard about Sea Trees through one of our team members, Melody. She was inspired by their work and thought they would be a great nonprofit that shared our passion for the environment. She was absolutely right.”

Burgeon's The Arbor in Little Italy turns one

Burgeon Beer Company

Reclaim the Sea was released in conjunction with the recent one-year anniversary of Burgeon’s Little Italy tasting room, The Arbor. In addition to the West Coast IPA, Burgeon also released the Pergola Italian Pilsner — a nod to The Arbor’s home neighborhood. “For Pergola,” says Tallman, “we drew inspiration from some of the great Italian-style Pilsners. We first approached it from an ingredient standpoint, starting with the base malt. Pergola is built on a foundation of Eraclea Pilsner malt, which is a barley grown near the Adriatic Sea Northeast of Venice. We then selected three German grown hop varieties: Perle, Saphir, and Spalter Select for delicately bitter, flavor and dry hop this beer with. The Saphir and Spalter Select contributed to the aromatics providing notes of jasmine, lemon, floral and noble spiciness.”

The 5.1% Italian Pilsner is the first beer of its type brewed by Burgeon and is a lighter, sweeter alternative to Reclaim the Sea for those looking for something different from a hoppy IPA. Both releases are available in cans and on tap at Burgeon.