Sheffield’s Abbeydale Brewery has announced the details of a brand new beer festival set to take place on August bank holiday weekend.
Funk Fest 2018 will take place inside the brewery itself, and is named after the brewery’s cellar – the Funk Dungeon, where the production line of Abbeydale’s beers starts. The beer festival will showcase the best of brewery’s beers as well as guest lines from some of the UK’s experimental hop heads. Chorlton (Manchester), Yeastie Boys (London/New Zealand) and Fyne Ales’ Origins Project (Scotland) are just some of the breweries confirmed for the two day event.
Funk Dungeon lead brewer, Jim Rangeley, said: “Over the past couple of years, our passion for ageing beer with wild yeast and bacteria has grown, along with the number of beers in our cellar – the affectionately titled Funk Dungeon.
“We feel that now is the perfect time to showcase some of not just our sour and mixed fermentation beers, of which we are very proud, but also those from other great producers of this type of beer from around the UK, many of whom are good friends of ours. To my knowledge this is the first event of its kind to take place in the UK outside of London, so it really is something special.”
“The programme is something which is hugely exciting for us and is a continual learning curve. As our barrel stock expands we intend to release a larger range of aged beers, including barrel finished beer such as whisky stouts, wild saisons and fruited farmhouse style ales.”
Abbeydale Brewery co-owner and director Susan Morton said: “Many people may be more familiar with this sort of flavour profile than they first realise, as it’s typical of many Belgian beer styles. They have generally spent time ageing in wooden barrels and are often complex in flavour. For our brewers, production of these sorts of beers is fun yet challenging, as it’s essentially learning to control the uncontrollable.”
Sunshine Deli and the Rising Sun kitchen will be on hand to provide themed food, with local DJs playing funk music all afternoon.
Funk Fest 2018 takes place at Abbeydale Brewery on 25 – 26 August. Head over to Abbeydale Brewery’s Facebook page for more information, or grab tickets here.
