Beer Review: Griddle (Funk Brewing)

Sorry for a slow amount of articles lately. I know things have kinda gotten down to a trickle with only weekly articles, but I do have a lot of backburner ones, and hoping for my weekend (Wednesday – Friday) I will be able to get up a lot of them. Quite a bit of them are backdated ones, so be sure to be on the lookout for them (best way to automatically be notified is to become a subscriber and follower, so make sure to follow us). I am also hoping to finish up the YouTube video (FINALLY!?!!!!!??!?!?!?) and get that posted this weekend as well.

But I do have a TON, and I mean, ___A___TON___, of beer reviews to go over and get published up on here. From a lot of different breweries. Hopefully also J. Doncevic will jump back in with a review soon (every time I see him he hints to me that he’s getting back in the review game…. and…. then…. nothing….) (….maybe if we bug him enough…. he will….). Also looking forward (still) to A. Parys’s soon to be released interview article that he did / is doing / has done / is working on.

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I ended up at Funk Brewing in E-Town a while back (September 4th) when Cox Brewing’s newest location – The Rally Point – was at max capacity. So, unable to get in, I got a draft to go, drank it in the parking lot, then went to Funk Brewing. Where I first had their Oktoberfest, and then this – Griddle – a barleywine that was delicious and worthy of a beer review. So here goes!

Beer: Griddle
Brewery: Funk Brewing (Funk Brewing Company)
Style: Barleywine – English
ABV: 10.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: Brewed with over 50 gallons of Vermont maple syrup this barleywine a huge maple nose but the heirloom english malt shines through cutting the sweetness. In 4 words or less: Flapjacks and Jack Daniels.

I am a huge Barleywine fan, of all shapes, sizes, flavors and breweries. Funk’s is no different. Funk Brewing is well known in the Central PA, primarily for their Double Disco and Mic Drop and Citrus and a few others. Their location in E-Town is typically pretty hopping (even during COVID) (….get the pun?). To read more about Funk Brewing click here for their Untappd page: Funk Brewing’s Untappd Page.

Appearance for Griddle follows what most Barleywines look like; a malty looking dark, heavy beer. Akin to tobacco spit, which might not be the most appetizing way to describe it, but I think a pretty apt one (just don’t think about it from now on). Despite having to drink it in a plastic cup (which I hear is a bit of a no-no for some people in PA and that sometimes post in a Facebook group and run their own brewery……….) it still had a nice small ring of a head.

Smell is very syrupy, very maple, very malty. The description does a good job describing the nose to this; very heavy maple. Very. Heavy. Maple. A. Very. Maple. Forward. Nose. The. Nose. Is. Very. Heavy. In. Maple. Ummm… did you pick up on that its got a very heavy maple aroma? There are a few more underlying hints and whiffs, but its primarily the maple, a bit of a brown sugar smell, and English malts. Possibly a hint of some of the English hops, but it would be so extremely diluted that it’d be hard to say.

This is definitely flapjacks and Jack Daniels. Its strong boozy right out of the gate, but with an extremely heavy maple flavor. The English malts (and perhaps English hops too) bitter out the sweetness of the maple syrup and tame it a bit, giving it – alongside with the booziness – a bit of a bite. Not fully a bitter bite, but a definite eye – opener. Mostly bitter to cut out the sweet, the bite also has that boozy undertone kicking you a fair bit. Thats not to say this isn’t sweet though. Its certainly still very sweet, but with the heavy boozy undertones, and with the English malts providing a nice malty bitterness, that the maple sweetness doesn’t become too cloying or clinging to your tongue (like Lizard of Koz was from Founders……. shudders….. I still have nightmares of drinking that beer). This seems like a very strong Pennsylvania beer, the idea of a boozy flapjack strikes deep to the core of a good hard working lumberjack breakfast. A can of Griddle, some flapjacks, scrapple, bacon, eggs, and maybe coffee to wash it down, would be a great breakfast and start to the day for any hard working man ready to go out and cut down a hundred trees and deforest the rural lands. The beer might even give said lumberjack the edge he would need if he had to race a giant flannel wearing man with a big blue Ox…… (Do people even remember the old folk tales and folk legends of yore?) At 10.5% and with the boozy taste, a 16oz can of this is all you need at a time, but its a wonderful time, and a great drinking beer. Enjoy! (I know I did!)

My Untappd Rating: ****
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 9.21.20)

For those interested, the book I’m reading in the picture was a great book by Daniel Klein. You can find it (and even find my book review of it there) on GoodReads here: Everytime I Find the Meaning to Life, They Change It: Wisdom of the Great Philosophers on How to Live Life. I highly recommend the book as much as I do the beer. (In fact I highly recommend Daniel Klein as an author, his philosophy books are fantastic, and the joke series he did with Thomas Cathcart are great – Plato and A Platypus Walk Into a Bar and Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates).

This was a shorter beer review, and a bit of a quick launch one, but I wanted to get an article out tonight, because primarily, because I feel like I haven’t been writing that much lately, and I need to get a lot more writing done. I have all of these “drafts” set-up on my WordPress and just need to finish them. Plus I have had a ton of great beers lately that all deserve reviews. So I need to get through them and get them done! So I’m trying.

As always, please, please, please, please – like, follow, subscribe, follow us on social media, and comment your questions, comments, suggestions, etc. Always love to hear from you.

Enjoy and cheers everyone!

-B. Kline