Black Is Beautiful
Funkytown Brewery

 

 

 

neat beer from this cool project, my first beer from funkytown, done in collaboration with weathered souls, blueberries and vanilla in a pretty tame base stout, not super fresh anymore, but still unique and fun to sip on. the cool part of this is how dry it is, really minimal residual sugar here, unexpected with these ingredients, and even the vanilla doesnt enrich it too much, so this is drinkable as the flavored stouts go for sure. the beer us more brown than black, a little murky and perhaps not amazingly well refined, decent head from the can. the nose shows trace oxidation, some lightly tangy blueberry character, dried cherry and cranberry fruitiness too, milk chocolate, warm coffee, and just a little something bready from the yeast. the vanilla isnt overdone here, the blueberry is mainly fermented down, and there is only a little grain richness in here, smooth in feel but still sort of feels like something is missing a little bit. faint raisin, smoke, and toffee in the middle, dry roast and some tart character at the end, more of that as it warms. interesting, i like fruit in a stout like this, and the subtle nature of the extras is a nice change of pace from what is on trend right now. the overall beer is good not great, but time is not on its side. ill be curious to try more from these guys when i encounter it...

Released February 2023; drank 3/1/23 @ the Yarchives.

Brown/black appearance.

A rough pour yielded a big tan head; a thick curtain of tree-rung lace.

Blueberry, vanilla syrup, mild chocolate & faint dill pickle notes in the nose.

Sticky medium thick mouthfeel.

Blueberry syrup & dill pickle flavors. Artificial & odd.

Not sure what happened here, but it's a bad beer.

Now well into at least my fourth interpretation of Black Is Beautiful, I'm getting curious about whether or not a core pan-style recipe of malty darks is providing structure to all this variation or whether (or not) Weathered Souls is just organizing crafters around this collaboration concept and letting it all just be.

Regardless of what is happening, I'm enjoying the spontaneity and the brotherhood. Inevitably, that makes the beers better, too.

As for Funkytown's contribution to the collaboration.... I've only had three from them, but I'm picking up a reserved innovation in their approach to brewing. I keep looking for some radical hip-hop rendition and, instead, I get subtlety. For example in this Black Is Beautiful, I'm expecting a BA richness; since 7.2 ABV pushes toward barrel territory. Yet the vanilla added here is tame to what the barrel typically imparts. But the use of blackberry here changes Baltics. While this Funkytown rendition starts with the styles typical Looks lacking lasting foam, but this blackberry seems to finish longer and sits on my tongue. It's all good, just slightly different.

How does a one year old micro know such subtlety comes from a blackberry ?
Beats me. But I'm glad I can enjoy it. Cheers, Bros !

3/3/25 Just drank the 2024 re-release and edited the above and stick to my high rating. It's an interesting rendition worth having again.