Funk Fest Update
Our Funk Fest At Home boxes are now SOLD OUT (more details on those can be found here), but that’s not the only way you can get involved! Funk Fest has never been just about Abbeydale Brewery and our Funk Dungeon – the spirit of the festival has always been one of collaboration, mutual support, and encouraging conversation around sour beers and mixed fermentation in general. We’re very lucky to have so many outstanding producers of these styles of beer surrounding us, and we’d love you to join in the conversation.
So, with that in mind, local retailers and other breweries too are getting involved, and supplying the “guest” beers for our little at-home festival! Whichever mixed ferm beverage you choose to crack open for the occasion, feel free to join in using #FunkFestAtHome and #FunkFestFringe on Twitter and Instagram over the festival weekend of 30th October-1st November, and be sure to send us your photos and reviews on Facebook too!
We expect this list to keep changing as we get closer to the festivities, so keep your eyes peeled and we’ll be sure to keep this regularly updated. Here’s what we know so far!
Hop Hideout have put together a cider box with virtual orchard tour! The tour will be at 4pm on Sunday 1st November with Ross Cider. You can pre-order your box now here.
Beer Central have lots of exciting new sours to release, so watch out for them coming soon! Sean and the team will be recommending something new from innovative UK producers alongside traditional Belgian examples of the style.
Archer Road Beer Stop and The Green Shop are both offering 10% off sour and mixed fermentation beers in the run up to the festival, from 23rd October to 1st November.
Craft & Berry will have 20% off sour beers online (using code FUNKFEST20) and in-store, between the 26th and 31st October
Turner’s Bottle & Tap are offering 10% off their range of sour beer in can over the festival weekend, from 29th October to 1st November.
Walkley Beer Co have some great sours available and will also be joining us to launch our Little Earth Project collaboration, Through the Sticks.
And look out for new releases from Wilderness Brewery and Woodman’s Wild Ale, both of whom have supplied their incredible beers to our festival in the past and have some great things in the pipeline. We’d also recommend seeking out beers from Little Earth Project, who are joining our virtual tasting of our Through The Sticks collaboration on Friday 30th October, and London Beer Factory, who have helped us create three amazing beers which launch over the festival weekend. And a final shout out here for Yonder Brewing & Blending, who very kindly helped us to source the bottles for our festival tasting sets!
We’re also hoping to support a Funk Fest Fringe which we’d initially planned during the two weeks surrounding the festival but are now extending out to whenever venues are able to do so (whilst of course remaining mindful of the ever changing situation – so apologies that this information is currently a little vague, please consider it a work in progress!), featuring the following venues:
London Beer Factory’s The Barrel Project hope to host the London launch of our three collaboration beers, live brewed during Funk Fest 2019!
We’re in the process of finalising (well, as final as final can be in the current circumstances) plans with Wigan Central, Broken Seal Tap Room (Stevenage), The Stoneworks (Peterborough), Walkley Beer Co, Boozehound, Jabeerwocky, Bar Stewards, The WIsewood and The Raven.
Plus the team over at Sheffield Hopcast will be recording a special episode of their podcast focused around sour and mixed ferm beers to be released in early November, so be sure to give that a listen!
Finally, The Crow Inn had planned a Berliner Weisse event, featuring a special beer from ourselves and different flavours of syrup made by the Rutland Arms kitchen for you to choose your perfect combination! This is currently on hold due to Tier 3 restrictions but we’ll let you know as soon as we can regarding a re-arranged date.
If you’re a retailer or venue that would like to be involved, it’s not too late! Get in touch with anything you’d like to do to help us spread the mixed ferm word, we’d love to have you!
