There is no CPAN distribution that I could find called CGI::Escape - However, there is URI::Escape with which I have worked with before and does exactly what you need.

The function which performs the escaping, URI::Escape::uri_escape, can take two arguments, the first being the string to escape and the second a set of characters to escape - Unless otherwise specified, the function takes the following set as the characters to be escaped - "^A-Za-z0-9\-_.!~*'()". Usage of this function is documented in the module POD here.

 

Ooohhh, Rob no beer function well without!