Spent Grain Dog Treats

Save some spent grain from your next homebrew to make a treat for your furry friend! Here's a basic recipe that will guarantee a satisfied pup.

Ingredients:
4 cups spent grain
2 cups flour (whole wheat preferred)
1 cup peanut butter
2 organic eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile combine and mix each of the ingredients thoroughly until a thick dough forms.

Roll out the dough on a generously floured surface and cut shapes with cookie cutters, lining them up on baking sheets.

Dough is very sticky; add flour as needed.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduce temperature to 225 degrees and continue baking for 2 hours. This will ensure they are completely dry to extend their shelf life.

Dried cookies will keep for 2 weeks in an airtight container. Freeze to keep them longer.

** WARNING: Do not add hops to the dog treats. Dogs can be dangerously allergic to hops.

Fort Collins Style Clam Chowder with Funkwerks Saison Base

photo courtesy of Emily Hutto and recipe courtesy of Chef Ricky Myers of Jax Fish House at 123 N. College Avenue in Fort Collins

serves 4 to 6

ingredients

1 12-ounce bottle Funkwerks Saison

1 cup carrot, medium-diced

1 cup onion, medium-diced

1 cup celery, medium-diced

1 large tomato, medium-diced

1 large Russet potato, medium diced

1/4 lb. bacon

15 oz. can of chopped clams

15 oz. can of pureed tomato

3 cups seafood stock or bouillon

1 Tablespoon tomato paste

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon chili flakes

1 Tablespoon garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, picked and chopped

preparation

Render bacon in a medium pot until crispy. Remove bacon (not the fat) from pot and set aside.       

           

Add carrot, celery, onion, garlic, and bay leaf to pot. Cook on low heat and caramelize,  about 15 minutes.

Add tomato paste and thyme and stir to coat rendered vegetables.

“Toast” tomato paste for about five minutes, stirring often. Deglaze tomato paste with beer and simmer for about five minutes to reduce beer just a bit.                           

Strain the clams, reserving the liquid.                                                             

Add the clam juice, lobster stock, diced tomatoes, chili flake, cooked bacon from the first step, and puréed tomato. Bring everything to a simmer for about 30 minutes.

Add the potatoes and continue to simmer until potatoes are tender.

Turn off heat, add chopped clams, and stir. Garnish with fresh-picked herbs of your choice.

Enjoy ;)

Funky Cocktails and Swanky Music at Ace Gillett's

Every month the Funkwerks team gets together outside of work for some team bonding, kind of like the team bonding activities you did as a kid, except instead of trust falls and the 'human knot', we like to get together for some 'market research'. 

A couple of months ago, the Funky team decided to visit Ray, one of our favorite bartenders at one of our favorite bars in Fort Collins, Ace Gillett's. 

Ace Gillett's is an underground Jazz Lounge located under the Armstrong hotel in Old Town. Named after the founder of the Armstrong hotel; an entrepreneur who greatly influenced the development of downtown Fort Collins in the 1940's. If you haven't had the pleasure to visit, we strong recommend you schedule a date. 

Ace Gillett's is well known for their handcrafted cocktails, and they are ingenuitive and delectable. Ray concocted a few specialty Funkwerks cocktails for the Funkwerks gang that were too delicious to keep to ourselves. Ray was kind enough to give us the recipes to share!

The River Styx

4 oz Fresh Sqeezed OJ

1.75 oz Basil Hydens Bourbon

1 oz Amaretto Disaronni 

Circular Ball Ice

Fill to the top with Tropic King 3.5 oz 

Bloody Bastard

1 oz Dimmi (Dimmi has hints of Apricot and peach that pairs well with Tropic King)

.5 oz St. Germain

½ an organge  or 1 oz of OJ

2 oz of Red Wine

.25 oz Simple Syrup

Shake the above with Ice.

Strain over fresh ice. 

Fill with Tropic King and gently stir to mix.

The Strong Island Iced Tea

25 oz Vodka

.25 oz Gin

.25 oz White Rum

.25 oz Tequila 

1 full lime 

1 full lemon

.25 simple syrup

Stir the above together

splash of Cola

.25oz Cointreau 

                                 Top with Tropic King

Pumpkins Come And Pumpkins Go, But A Jack-O-Lanterns Steal The Show.

This year we provided pumpkins and carving utensils for anyone who wanted to join us for a Pumpkin Carving Party!

We bought 32 pumpkins!

Everyone who wanted to participate in a Pumpkin Contest for the chance to win some free beer stayed until sundown..... And the winner is.....

1st Place in Pumpkin Contest goes to this FW Skull Glass
by Joseph Sennett

2nd Place Cat Pumpkin
Brad loves Cats.

Adam's Pumpkin

Join us next year!

Funkwerks Wins a Medal at GABF!

Raspberry Provincial was awarded a Gold medal this year for the Belgian-Style Fruit Ale beer-style category at Great American Beer Festival® (GABF). 

Presented by the Brewer's Association, GABF is the largest national beer competition that evaluates and recognizes the most outstanding brewers and their beers produced in the United States. The 2014 GABF competition winners were selected by an international panel of 222 expert judges from the record number of 5,507 entries, plus 89 Pro-Am entries, received from 1,309 U.S. breweries. The competition was fierce!

Raspberry Provincial stood up against 40 other beers in the Belgian-Style Fruit Ale category and took Gold!

Raspberry Provincial is a Belgian-Style Berliner Weisse ale with a heavy dose of raspberries. A sessionable fruit beer at 4.2% alcohol by volume that is delightfully tart, with a citrusy raspberry aroma and a dry, tart finish. It's a beer that appeals to a range of beer drinkers because it maintains a bright fruit profile without being overly sour or cloyingly sweet. The result is one of the most refreshingly drinkable beers we have brewed.

Photo © 2014 Jason E. Kaplan

Raspberry Provincial is brewed during the summer season and available in bottles. Please check our website for availability or shoot us an e-mail!

What is Acidulated Malt?

In our most recent experimental single hopped Saison, Motueka, we threw in some acidulated malt, just for fun! 

Also known as Sauermalz, Acid Malt, or Sour Malt, Acidulated malt is a type of malted barley that contains a small amount of lactic acid that gives it a sour taste. Acidulated malt is most commonly used in small amounts (1-5%) to reduce the pH of the wort or mash. It can add complexity and slight tartness that helps highlight certain hop flavors.

In Motueka, we added 3% acidulated malt to highlight some of the Motueka hop flavors, such as lemon, lime, and passion fruit, and to give it an interesting mild tartness. 

At greater amounts (8%), it can be used in certain beer styles to help sour, such as Berliner Weisse and Gose beers, instead of souring the kettle by putting lactobacillus strains straight in the kettle.

Weyermann® acidulated malt is soured with naturally occurring lactic acid that they propagate from wort, following the German Purity Law, which states beer can only be produced using water, barley, and hops. Although exact details of the acidulation process remain undisclosed, the process is similar to the production of other malts. They use a pale barely malt that is steeped, germinated, kilned, and acidulated. 

Always learning something new! 

Funkwerks Now Bottling in Smaller Bottles

PRESS RELEASE: Funkwerks is now packaging in 330ml bottle 4-packs! Now customers can enjoy the beloved Tropic King and the award-winning flagship Saison in a smaller, more convenient bottle!

For three years now, Funkwerks has been bottling solely in 750ml bottles. People tend to save larger bottles of beer for a special occasion or to share with others. Smaller bottles provide more variety, accessibility, and the convenience of enjoying a single beer without the commitment of a larger bottle. Not that 750ml is too much Saison for me....

Smaller bottles additionally help in maintaining freshness. If people are opening a larger bottle and saving half of it for a later time, the beer will lose it's carbonation and quickly oxidize with so much air left in the bottle. 

Previously Funkwerks did not have the capacity to accommodate the increase in production that would come with bottling in 330 ml bottles, but their recent expansion of two 30-barrel fermenters increased their fermentation capacity by almost 43%. 

Gordon moving the fermenter in the new space!

Now with the ability to brew more beer, Funkwerks has also decided to return to kegging in half barrels, reducing the cost per fluid ounce for accounts. 

1/2 barrels available for distribution!

What are some of the reasons you are excited to pick up a 4-pack?

Funkwerks Joins the FC Bike Library Family

Somewhere, at the farthest point on the largest brewing street in the country (according to DRAFT Magazine http://draftmag.com/beereditor/the-biggest-brewing-street-in-the-country/), in a exceptionally bike friendly, beer drinking community, there was a microbrewery that thought it might be a good idea to become a Bike Library hub.  So here we go!

Funkwerks officially joins the Bike Library Family

The Fort Collins Bike Library is a project of Bike Fort Collins (a nonprofit organization). The Bike Library’s mission is to “provide an affordable and dependable resource for bicycle sharing and advocacy promoting a positive cycling culture in Fort Collins.” Learn more about the Bike Library at http://www.fcbikelibrary.org/.

With the rise in tourism to Fort Collins, bikes are a great way to safely visit breweries. And most visitors do not travel with their own bicycle, making the Fort Collins Bike Library a continent way to fully experience a key aspect of the Fort Collins culture.

Beer and Bikes! It’s a match made in heaven.

 

The Funkwerks Fleet: 6 Crusiers

As a Bike Library hub, you can rent a bike for $10 a day (technically free, but only if you return the bike by 1pm the same day it is checked out). Complete the sign up form and digital liability waiver located online; you will need a credit card and your photo ID number. You can do this ahead of time to make the process a tad speedier, or use our computer in the taproom, at your convenience. Pick up your bike from Funkwerks and ride! You may also return your bike at any of the six Bike Library locations!

Main Station at 250 N. Mason
CSU Surplus at 201 W. Lake St.
University Inn – Best Western at 914 S. College Ave.
Funkwerks at 1900 E. Lincoln Ave.
Bike Library Maintenance Facility at 220 N. Howes
Cranknstein – Return location only at 215A N. College Ave.