On a Sunday in August that marked Abbeydale Brewery’s 30th birthday, a select crowd that had managed to get tickets gathered at their Beerworks tap room for a guided Funk Dungeon beer tasting led by the dungeon master himself, Jim Rangely, along with Laura Rangely, Abbeydale’s marketing manager.
Funk Dungeon is Abbeydale’s project that experiments with things like barrel-ageing, alternative fermentation and sour beer styles.
The tasting event focused on the Funk Dungeon’s story so far with bottled beers that have been laid away over the last few years and in some cases were the last ones remaining at the brewery.
There was a range of three beers produced for the ‘Funk Fest’, held at the brewery, including a bretted saison – both the original beer and a version aged in red wine barrels – along with a beer that had been live-brewed at the event using a portable koelship for spontaneous fermentation from wild yeast in the air. In total seven beers were sampled in the tasting.
To finish off all, were offered a slice of birthday cake along with the opportunity to sample more recent brews on cask and keg that were on the bar that day!