Samuel Adams – Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru – A First Tasting

What a great surprise to get an early sample of Samuel Adams Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru.  Just yesterday I published the press release for this exciting new beer so this will be one of the first samplings you’ll see on-line….so off we go.

For those unfamiliar, Kosmic Mother Funk is a Belgian ale fermented with brettanomyces, lactobacillus and other wild organisms, and if that’s not fun enough, this beer is then aged in 150-year-old Hungarian oak tuns.  The result is a really unique brew that our pal Jim Koch has used as part of the blend for his Barrel Room Collection Tetravis Quad, his Boston Tea Party Saison, and even his classic Utopias 2013…and I can tell you that this beer adds some really unique flavors and textures.

Kosmic Mother Funk (KMF) will now serve as the backbone to all of the Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection beers, so it’s no surprise that Jim Koch would release the beer and allow it to stand on it’s own.

Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru is being released this year for the very first time and It’s a lot of fun to be sampling it on it’s own (and not in a blend).  This vintage was aged for 2 years and the aromas, flavors and textures are unique not only to this beer, but I suspect also this vintage.  This beer is certainly funky in the classical sense with aromas of dark fruit, oak, cocoa and even earthy yeast.  The flavors are complex and they also change quite a bit as the temperature of the beer rises.  Up front it is tart with a graham-cracker funk to it, and at the back end it has flavors of dark cherries and a soft vanilla finish.  The mouthfeel is tart with low carbonation and there’s a little edge of sweetness (due in part to the Belgian candi sugar) that I really liked.

If you love funky, tart, sour style beers, Samuel Adams Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru will not disappoint, but what I really liked about this beer was that it was also a “gateway” funky beer.  Several of my non-sour/funk loving friends found this to be a really pleasant, complex and drinkable beer, and everyone loved the goat cheese pairing we tried with KMF Grand Cru.

This beer is unique, so be sure to try it before it’s gone, and since I suspect there’s no way to brew the exact same beer given the wild components, cellar a bottle or two to see how it ages and see how it holds up against the 2015 Vintage (if they release it).  As always, let me know what you think when you sample and let me know if you liked Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru as much as I did.
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