Levi Funk

CornyKegs 728
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levifunk said:
I have been brewing lambic with O'so Brewing for the last couple years. This year I had a coolship built and we are now making lambic according to traditional methodology. In the next year I hope to find a warehouse space of my own and contract brew with multiple breweries.
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It's not lambic.
 
herman-cain-smile.gif
 
Michigan said:
Why has every American Wild fallen short in complexity to true Belgian Lambics? I don't think there's a shortage of dusty farm attics to do spontaneous fermentation in America. Have we not found desirable areas?
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We are infants to the style. We have not had generations to cull barrels or refine the art of blending. Its not going to happen overnight, but I think in the next 10 years you will start seeing some great stuff.
 
Hello Levi, thanks for joining!

What was the genesis of the O'so collab? Did it lead to a lot of their beers suddenly being infected or was Brett dank, brett'n red, wee on the lam etc something that happened intentionally? Or am I thinking of the wrong wild yeast?
 
nodamagedone said:
Hello Levi, thanks for joining!

What was the genesis of the O'so collab? Did it lead to a lot of their beers suddenly being infected or was Brett dank, brett'n red, wee on the lam etc something that happened intentionally? Or am I thinking of the wrong wild yeast?
Click to expand...
I did a pilot barrel in my basement. I had talked to Marc about doing lambic, but he didn't feel he had the space. One evening I saw him downtown at an event and told him I live a few blocks away and we should go pull a sample out of the barrel. He and his sales guy along with myself and a buddy went to my place and pulled off the barrel and drank from the beer cellar. When he tasted the barrel he said "let's do this". He moved some stuff around at the brewery to accommodate the first batch of barrels, and we filled 15 barrels.

Brett dank, Brett'n Red, Wee on the Lam, etc have all been intentional sours/wilds. He has really gotten excited about funky beers since we started doing this. He is actually looking at a way he can add another 150 oak barrels to the brewery dedicated to just funky beers.
 
Do you feel it unfair if you were to trade your own beer away for Belgian lambic, and if not, do you keep production numbers low to intentionally inflate trade values?

Also, will FF need to now refer to Funk Factory, and no longer Fou Foune?


also, ISO: FF, FT: You tell me.
 
Trady said:
Do you feel it unfair if you were to trade your own beer away for Belgian lambic, and if not, do you keep production numbers low to intentionally inflate trade values?
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Ha, production numbers are low because it is a very small operation at this point. We have filled under 50 barrels and only 6 of them were packaged for last weekends release. This summer we plan on packaging around 20 barrels, so hopefully there will be a lot more.

It is an interesting thought though. Is it better to have low bottle count to incite hype, or increase bottle count to get the product out to more people and "build a name". So, if you were to package 20 oak barrels knowing that each barrel results in ~250 bottles, how would you do it?
 
levifunk said:
Ha, production numbers are low because it is a very small operation at this point. We have filled under 50 barrels and only 6 of them were packaged for last weekends release. This summer we plan on packaging around 20 barrels, so hopefully there will be a lot more.

It is an interesting thought though. Is it better to have low bottle count to incite hype, or increase bottle count to get the product out to more people and "build a name". So, if you were to package 20 oak barrels knowing that each barrel results in ~250 bottles, how would you do it?
Click to expand...
Release them in increasingly trickier ways, starting with tweeting about it a week out, and with your last release being a month long scavenger hunt. Scavenger bottles would be way more .rar
 
Trady said:
do you keep production numbers low to intentionally inflate trade values?
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I still don't buy that breweries actually do this. I think they do small batches because of resources. Most breweries are still pretty small operations overall and they will make more money if they increase production of their specialty beers. Has there ever been an obvious case of this happening?
 
Frank said:
levifunk
on a scale of 1-10 how happy are you with these recently released bottles?
Click to expand...

I'm very happy with them, otherwise they wouldn't have been bottled/sold. One issue I'm not that happy with is the carbonation level, but I'm hoping that increases some in the next couple months. Also, I think we were told to use the wrong corks. They seem too dense and are very difficult to get out. Small issues that will be easy to fix next time ;)

I am very curious as to what people think of the Sikaru. It was a very experimental beer and is as much of a date wine? as a sour beer (the dates took a 5% beer to 12.75%). I don't think many people know what dates taste like. I have heard from some they taste cereal in the beer, which isn't there...it is part of the date flavor. I think its going to be a very polarizing beer. Also, people ask if they should age it, and while I think it has great potential, I have no idea what that beer will do long term.

I'm very happy with Dweller on the Threshold. I think there is a depth to that beer and lets the lambic-style base shine. I think the Scarlet Letter is easier to understand and will be more of a crowd favorite, but IMO Dweller is a better beer. Scarlet is a beautiful beer with a crisp vibrant flavor, but it will have a short shelf life so drink it fresh. Its a sour blond base that just wont hold up, where the Dweller is a lambic base and should only get better and better.
 
levifunk said:
I'm very happy with them, otherwise they wouldn't have been bottled/sold. One issue I'm not that happy with is the carbonation level, but I'm hoping that increases some in the next couple months. Also, I think we were told to use the wrong corks. They seem too dense and are very difficult to get out. Small issues that will be easy to fix next time ;)

I am very curious as to what people think of the Sikaru. It was a very experimental beer and is as much of a date wine? as a sour beer (the dates took a 5% beer to 12.75%). I don't think many people know what dates taste like. I have heard from some they taste cereal in the beer, which isn't there...it is part of the date flavor. I think its going to be a very polarizing beer. Also, people ask if they should age it, and while I think it has great potential, I have no idea what that beer will do long term.

I'm very happy with Dweller on the Threshold. I think there is a depth to that beer and lets the lambic-style base shine. I think the Scarlet Letter is easier to understand and will be more of a crowd favorite, but IMO Dweller is a better beer. Scarlet is a beautiful beer with a crisp vibrant flavor, but it will have a short shelf life so drink it fresh. Its a sour blond base that just wont hold up, where the Dweller is a lambic base and should only get better and better.
Click to expand...

Which one has the most old rubber band flavor?
 
trickytunadicky said:
If you were going to make a gueuze in 7 days, how would you go about it?
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;)

I'd spend the first day brewing, the second day filling barrels, wait a year and spend the third day brewing, and the fourth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the fifth day brewing, and the sixth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the seventh day blending and bottling.
 
levifunk said:
;)

I'd spend the first day brewing, the second day filling barrels, wait a year and spend the third day brewing, and the fourth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the fifth day brewing, and the sixth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the seventh day blending and bottling.
Click to expand...
N2FEP.gif
 
I'm just in here to say that I really want to try all of these brews.
Since this is an AMA:
As a question Alex; 'What is wanted in my mouth?'

I'll stay out of the lambic, not lambic debate as while I have my beliefs, the real thing speaks for itself.
 
degardebrewing said:
I'm just in here to say that I really want to try all of these brews.
Since this is an AMA:
As a question Alex; 'What is wanted in my mouth?'

I'll stay out of the lambic, not lambic debate as while I have my beliefs, the real thing speaks for itself.
Click to expand...

Lets swap beer, swap stories, and become bff's4lyfe
 
levifunk said:
;)

I'd spend the first day brewing, the second day filling barrels, wait a year and spend the third day brewing, and the fourth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the fifth day brewing, and the sixth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the seventh day blending and bottling.
Click to expand...

You forgot about the days lost in traveling to Belgium to do all this work....
 
levifunk said:
;)

I'd spend the first day brewing, the second day filling barrels, wait a year and spend the third day brewing, and the fourth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the fifth day brewing, and the sixth day filling barrels, wait another year and spend the seventh day blending and bottling.
Click to expand...

dhMeAzK.gif


SeaWatchman said:
You forgot about the days lost in traveling to Belgium to do all this work....
Click to expand...

ku-xlarge.gif
 
levifunk said:
Also, people ask if they should age it, and while I think it has great potential, I have no idea what that beer will do long term.
Click to expand...

Not a question but thank you for saying this. It annoys me sometimes when brewers claim a beer will age for X years wonderfully when in most cases there's no possible way they could know this for sure.
 
xnicknj said:
Not a question but thank you for saying this. It annoys me sometimes when brewers claim a beer will age for X years wonderfully when in most cases there's no possible way they could know this for sure.
Click to expand...
To be fair, I did write 10 years on the Dweller bottles, but that is more or less just encouragement to cellar the beer.
 
levifunk said:
I did a pilot barrel in my basement. I had talked to Marc about doing lambic, but he didn't feel he had the space. One evening I saw him downtown at an event and told him I live a few blocks away and we should go pull a sample out of the barrel. He and his sales guy along with myself and a buddy went to my place and pulled off the barrel and drank from the beer cellar. When he tasted the barrel he said "let's do this". He moved some stuff around at the brewery to accommodate the first batch of barrels, and we filled 15 barrels.

Brett dank, Brett'n Red, Wee on the Lam, etc have all been intentional sours/wilds. He has really gotten excited about funky beers since we started doing this. He is actually looking at a way he can add another 150 oak barrels to the brewery dedicated to just funky beers.
Click to expand...
So a brewery just rolled in barrels full of wild yeast and bugs? What kind of thought was given to steps to minimize contamination risks?
 
levifunk said:
I'm very happy with them, otherwise they wouldn't have been bottled/sold. One issue I'm not that happy with is the carbonation level, but I'm hoping that increases some in the next couple months. Also, I think we were told to use the wrong corks. They seem too dense and are very difficult to get out. Small issues that will be easy to fix next time ;)

I am very curious as to what people think of the Sikaru. It was a very experimental beer and is as much of a date wine? as a sour beer (the dates took a 5% beer to 12.75%). I don't think many people know what dates taste like. I have heard from some they taste cereal in the beer, which isn't there...it is part of the date flavor. I think its going to be a very polarizing beer. Also, people ask if they should age it, and while I think it has great potential, I have no idea what that beer will do long term.

I'm very happy with Dweller on the Threshold. I think there is a depth to that beer and lets the lambic-style base shine. I think the Scarlet Letter is easier to understand and will be more of a crowd favorite, but IMO Dweller is a better beer. Scarlet is a beautiful beer with a crisp vibrant flavor, but it will have a short shelf life so drink it fresh. Its a sour blond base that just wont hold up, where the Dweller is a lambic base and should only get better and better.
Click to expand...
Pardon my ignorance, but how is a sour blond different from a Lambic?
 

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