Sean Bowman, Timothy Czarnetzki, and David Powell founded Urban Family Public House in the heart of Old Ballard in January 2012. The partners initially served a range of styles from other breweries, but later devoted a few of their taps to house beers made on a 15-gallon system. A little over two years later, the renamed Urban Family Brewing traded Ballard for Magnolia and upgraded to a 7-barrel brewhouse. Andy Gundel started helping the company with social media and logistics soon thereafter, and in 2016 became a majority owner. In the years since, Urban Family moved back to Ballard into a 20-barrel brewhouse, a large walk-in space, an expanded taproom, and a larger outdoor area. Today, Peaks & Pints presents an in-house flight of Urban Family beers — a flight we’re calling Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Urban Family.
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Urban Family
Urban Family Guava Dawn
6% ABV
Brewed with an insane amount of real, California-grown pink guavas, Guava Dawn is even more delicious with Urban Family’s house mixed-culture of Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, and Lactobacillus. Every sip is a puckering party of balanced acidity and bright fruit character. Seattle Magazine named Urban Family “Best Sour Brewery” in 2019 for a reason.
Urban Family Surfin’ Bird
6% ABV
First, it is song written by The Trashmen in the 1950s; then the song was featured on the family guy episode, “I dream of Jesus”; now it’s an Urban Family POG sour brewed for Seattle’s Screwdriver Bar. Based on the classic juice mix, this dry-hopped sour is dosed with huge quantities of guava and passionfruit and a hefty quantity of orange zest and puree.
Urban Family Vitality
6.5% ABV
The family-run Urban Family Brewing hid in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood for many years until they relocated to Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood in early 2020. The new location allowed for a 20-barrel brewhouse, a large walk-in space, an expanded taproom, and a larger outdoor area. With the new location, Urban Family expanded their expertise brewing more IPAs, specifically hazies. Their Vitality hazy IPA is brewed with rotating hops every year. This year, it’s brewed with Cryo Ekuanot, LupoMax Citra, and Azacca for spicy, zesty citrus, and tropical flavors.
Urban Family Disambiguation
9% ABV
This wood-aged sour has a strong theme of stone fruit. Urban Family aged their foeder-soured golden base into barrels with Collins Family Orchards donut peaches and yellow nectarines. After two years of fruit conditioning, these barrels were blended to create this latest wood-aged stone fruit sour. After bottle conditioning, this golden, sparkling peach and nectarine sour has potent flavors of peach skin and flesh, slight oak, and hints of tropical fruit from the donut peaches.
Urban Family Lighthouse in the Woods
12.1% ABV
Urban Family’s Lighthouse in the Woods barrel-aged imperial stout is a blend of 50 percent 2020 and 50 percent 2021 double mash stout, and then aged in Woodinville Rye and Bourbon barrels. This year, they’re using their 2-year blend to create three distinct variations using complementary ingredients to this huge stout. Lighthouse in the Woods, their third and final 2022 release, features an addition of Navel orange puree and zest.
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