Funk Factory Geuzeria

Looking to challenge your tastebuds and your preconceptions about the malty, hoppy beverage widely known as beer? Check out Funk Factory Geuzeria, a small Madison brewery pursuing traditional Lambic beer. Lambics are loosely defined as a type of beer fermented through exposure to wild yeasts and bacteria, as opposed to carefully cultivated strains of brewer’s yeast. This distinctive brew and styles of offspring, with its dry, vinous, cidery flavors, goes beyond the fruity sours that are creeping into mainstream production. At the Funk Factory taproom on Madison’s south side, you can find an adventurous array of Belgian Fruit Lambics, Belgian Saisons, and American Wild Ales.

Open-minded beer enthusiasts and fermentation geeks alike will be blown away by the level of technique and know-how behind Funk Factory’s old-world concoctions, especially such novelties as their meerts beer, a nearly forgotten style of Lambic and one of the brewery’s signature releases. Meerts are light-bodied and relatively low in alcohol. They’re made from the second runnings of Lambic’s turbid mash (a porridge-like mixture that results whe ncrushed grains are mixed with water at the beginning of the brewing process), and get their sour taste from fermentation activated by wild yeast strains. Funk Factory is believed to be the only U.S. maker of meerts, which is a great reason to sample this wonderfully complex yet approachable sour beer.