It was right at the beginning of the pandemic that Urban Artifact released the first of this series, on draft only (or crowlers more accurately… because covid) and it turned a few heads when they did. They called it ‘Top Secret’, and didn’t tell us much about it other than that it was made with a LOT of fruit.

As they prepare for the wider release of the series, we finally get the chance to dive in, and learn a little bit more about what makes this beer, this process, and this brewery really unique. Meet Astronaut Food – Top Secret no more.

Why So Much Fruit?

The tagline for Urban Artifact has become Real Fruit, Sour Beer. They sort of stumbled into their personality back when they released The Gadget for the first time. This ‘Sour Berry Bomb’ caught everyone a little off guard at how crazy good a sour beer, packed with a ton of fruit, but still fermented out dry could be. It spawned a whole series, the Midwest Fruit Tarts, and then their cousins the Double MWFTs.

It’s become Urban’s “thing” – tons of fruit packed into tasty sour beer, and in my opinion, not a lot of places do it better than what they do.

These guys are geeks, though. They’re always looking for new techniques to hone their craft and improve upon what they’re doing. This leads them down some really fun paths that give us some great beers along the journey. They have been playing around with techniques from the wine world – smacking them head first into those of the beer world and the results are absolutely groundbreaking, and wild to say the least.

The Birth Of Astronaut Food

This series was born out of a really simple idea. How can you get more fruit into the beer? To answer that the brewery looked to the last place you or I would think to do it… space.

During the space race of the 1960s NASA and scientists around the world were unsure of what the effects of zero gravity would be on the body in space. They weren’t even sure if Astronauts would be able to eat like normal once they got to space. Once they figured out that, yes, they could eat… they still weren’t sure how they were going to pack as much food as they’d need into as little space as they have. The solution was a brilliant one, that any modern day backpacker will be familiar with – freeze dried food. You can pack way more by removing the water from the food. It weighs less (reducing it by almost 90%) – but the nutrition and the taste remain behind.

Let’s use that to make a beer… right? Ha! That’s exactly how the folks at Urban Artifact think!

After some initial experimenting with using freeze dried fruits in their process, the brewery learned that you can definitely keep an intense fruit taste… more so than you can with normal puree. In addition… there’s no water in this fruit – so were hit with a beer that clocks in at around 15% abv.

This is wild stuff.

The Release

You’ve been drinking the experiments… and they’ve been delicious. It’s time to let the final product out of the brewery, though. Astronaut Food is preparing for liftoff.

The first release in the series is brewed with 600lbs of freeze-dried red raspberries and 400lbs of freeze-dried blackberries per 1,000 gallon batch. That’s the equivalent of more than 11,000 pounds of fruit when fresh. The brewery says that the concentrated flavors of raspberry and blackberry hit you immediately on the first taste, with an almost candy-like intensity. To balance out the over-the-top fruit flavors, a pronounced tartness and gentle warming alcohol are present.

Alongside the release of the beer, the brewery is celebrating with some limited merchandise to mark the occasion. They have some really sweet pins and glassware available.

Keep your eyes peeled for this release in early March… and in a bigger picture sense – just keep your eyes on these guys in general. They’re always pushing themselves to do things differently – and we most definitely get to benefit from that innovation.

[UPDATE] – My Thoughts On The Beer

Now that the beer is released, I figured it’s time to share my thoughts about it with you. You can head over to my full tasting notes here to read it! Not to spoil the surprise, but… it’s pretty freaking tasty. This beer is packed with fruit, and it shows. Bold doesn’t even scratch the surface, it’s in your face – blurring the line of beer and wine even more with some of Urban’s products. This is something that you’re not going to see somewhere else – it’s nuts.