Collaboration between a beer producer and a university garden is not your typical pairing, but Levi Funk and David Stevens have been determined to make it work.
Funk, proprietor of Funk Factory Geuzeria, has become a bit of a Wisconsin beer superstar over the last few years, but Stevens is most likely unknown to beer people. He’s the curator of the Longenecker Horticultural Gardens, a 35-acre collection within the Arboretum that he describes as “a living museum of woody plants from throughout North America, as well as other parts of the world that are adapted to our climate.”
I’ve walked through Olbrich Botanical Gardens and looked at the pawpaw tree, its branches hanging low with those odd, vaguely bean-shaped fruits, and thought, Why isn’t someone teaming up with Olbrich to put these in a beer? Leave it to Funk and his wife, Amanda, to not just see a similar potential with oddball fruits like Osage orange and American persimmon, but to actually contact the Arboretum to see if they could make a modest harvest.
The contacting part is important and I need to make sure all you homebrewers are clear on this point. As Arboretum communications director Susan Day points out, “the Arboretum has a ‘no collecting’ policy, though people can apply for a permit to collect materials, usually for research purposes.”
Stevens says the permits are typically given for activity that “advances knowledge of our natural resources.” Though the collaboration with Funk Factory is unique, Stevens says he believes it meets that criteria.
Funk is excited about continuing the relationship with the Arboretum to create a series, utilizing Arb cherries to do a version of Funk Factory’s Door Kriek wild ale or Cherry Meerts. Other future Arboretum beers are dependent on what fruits can be found in sufficient quantity.
The base beer for the initial round of releases is Meerts, Funk Factory’s easygoing de facto house beer. It has been soaking into 50 pounds each of Osage orange (a knobby green relative of the mulberry with a floral flavor often compared to cucumber) and American persimmon, a sweet and custardy fruit that’s extremely soft when ripe. Funk says the Osage orange “would be difficult to showcase in anything stronger than Meerts.” He describes the American persimmon as “citrusy and tart.”
Team Funk Factory started the conversation that birthed these beers back in Fall 2017. There were a couple stages of review and approval necessary to make the magic happen, but Stevens steered the request through the Arboretum’s process with all due speed.
“Given the perishability of the fruit, everyone understood that if we were going to move forward with the collaboration, that it would need to move quickly,” he says. “The fact that I’m a craft beer aficionado and occasional home brewer didn’t hurt.” As a result, it only took a couple weeks from initial contact to make the fruit handoff happen.
The beers, officially titled Funk Factory Geuzeria Arboretum Osage Orange and Arboretum American Persimmon, will be released with a presentation on the partnership on May 6 at the Funk Factory taproom on Gilson Street. Tickets for this Madison Craft Beer Week event are unfortunately already sold out.
