Golden Funk
Bell's Brewery - Eccentric Café & General Store

 

 

This was one of the first beers I went for when the gates opened at the brewers guild fest 2010.

Its a nice, partly hazy pale gold color. Minimal amount of foam, it just breaks up into loose bubbles.

Smell is pretty weak. You can tell its spiced, maybe with coriander. It is funky, but not intensely so. Its got a little bit of dry hay dust funk to it. Some light fruits like sour apple skins and under ripe pear.

I really like this beer. Its an easily approachable sour. Its not puckering. Just lightly lemony with some spicing and a mild touch of funk.

This is very very drinkable, we ended up going back for more.

I was slightly surprised to see this classified as a BSPA but I was unable to figure out what style it was as I was drinking it.

On tap at City Tap House, luckily left on tap the following Wednesday on our way to Nodding Head for a tasting.

A - Pours a cloudy yellow with 2 inches of white foam

S - some farmhouse and corriander, funky, tart aroma

T - bready yeast, lemon, corriander, some light funk as well

M/D - light-medium bodied, mild carbonation, just funky enough to keep me happy, but a bit light on the flavor as well. Easy to drink and refreshing mouthfeel. I'd love to have this again

On-tap at City Tap House for their Bell's event, I love this city.

Golden funk pours out a cloudy tan golden color with orange and a loose off white skim of foam on top. Small amounts of lace. Smells like brett, green apples, light fruit, spices, pepper, and citrus. Taste is hard to place, just what is this? getting brett up front farmhouse taste going into a spice rack with pepper and wheat, and than a fair amount of grapefruit, tangerines. A small malt hit with bread and yeast. An odd mix. Medium bodied and bold with a dry finish and the brett manages to hold on afterwards. I enjoyed this, it's interesting and different but not all that drinkable after one. This is a one and done beer for me, although I would not mind trying a old bottle to see where this goes. A good experiment.

A: Orangish-wheat colored body. Not much in the way of a head. Just a light, white skim. A couple small clumps of lacing.

S: Quite a bit of prickly, funky brett. Light citric notes, bread, biscuits, pepper and yeast.

T: Like the nose, this is dominated by prickly brett notes. A bit of spice, wheat, grain and light lemon-orange citric notes. Fairly bland.

M: Light-medium bodied. Good carbonation levels. Lingering brett finish. Super-dry.

D: Easy to drink and fairly pleasant. I just couldn't find anything to really keep my interest here.

Draft at Ciry Tap House.

Pours a cloudy golden creamsicle orange color with burnt orange hues when held to a light source and a half finger quite head that quickly fades away leaving a thin lasting ring.

Slightly funky, bretty tart aroma with hints of bready yeast, crisp light frit, peppery spice and more bretty efervesence. Underneath the brett there are hints if tangerine and citrus peel in the nose.

Surprisingly full bodied and chewy with lots of bready yeast, peppery spice and citrus fruit accompanied by a slightly puckering funky brett flavor that isn't overpowering at all. Hints of clove and peppery spice add cmplexity and comlimenting the dryness of th brett. Like a stenage wheat/wit, Belgian strong and wild ale hybrid. Very well balanced with nonparticular flavor overpowering the other. Sour heads will want the Brett to be more prominent but he unique way that each flavor bounces off each other is very appealing to me. Very refreshing and dangerously drinkable. Recommended.

I had this on tap at Bell's Eccentric Café. The chalkboard listed this as 6.2% ABV, with peppercorn, cardamom, and gargonel. The beer is hazy, pale gold color, with a rapidly thinning head. The aroma is slightly funked, like a light American wild ale. The mild brett lends a little barnyard to the taste, I suppose the advertised ingredients must be there too but I'm not good at discerning spices I know only by name. What I can say is that this was tasty and accessible, a wild ale gateway that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Review from notes. Poured from tap at Eccentric Café into a clean, clear glass. I regret that I did not record the ABV for this beer. Perhaps a kind BA will update this listing to correctly record the ABV?

A Yellow brown translucent with minimal, disappearing head which lasted about 60 seconds. 3.5

S Belgian yeast smell, sweet malt. I really like this smell. Interesting, inviting. 4.0

T Like a Belgian blonde with yeast to match. Good but a bit one dimensional. I do not taste the alcohol very much considering the level it is at. 4.0

M Moderate with sweet malt, some syrupy stickiness. 4.0

D Good drinkability indeed as it carries at least enough interest to keep me sipping until the pint is gone. 4.0

Split with the wife at the Eccentric Cafe in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

What a strange brew this is.

Light golden in color and quite opaque. The nose is quite the spectable, very Selsun Blue with a dash of ginger thrown in for good measure.

We had the ask what 'gellengah' was & were told it was a spice (or hops?) that was like ginger, which made sense given the smell. Tastewise this one is all over the map. The overall impression is medicinal, though not in a bad way, more like a pleasant cough syrup experience. The peppercorn comes searing out of the gate, & then the ginger (gallengah?). The regular old hops & malts are pretty much spectators to this circus. Drinkable? Nein!

Pretty good beer. Weird, experimental, funky, wild. Glad I got to try it.

Golden Funk, an ale brewed with peppercorns and gallena hops. The flavor is very Belgian, so it's down as a Belgian Pale Ale.

A: The golden ale is, well, golden. Translucent, the brilliant ale sits nicely in the snifter.

S: The nose is full of anise and not peppercorns, throwing me for a loss. The anise is strong and dominant in the ale.

T: Anise rules each sip with a heavy hand. Peppercorns appear sporadically to add a sharp contrasting flavor. Hops are not very strong, content to let the anise come through. My brother, Frederick T Bunkey, noted that is resembles Troegs Scratch 10 Grand Cru. A very apt comparison.

M: A sweet mouthfeel that belies a heavy booze quotient. I'd sip on another to look for more peppercorns.

D: Like all beers on this journey, one and one is the key. A nice one though that I'd love to explore some more.