MTF Community Projects
Contents
Beer It Forward
Twice a year, Josh Osborne organizes a "Beer It Forward" with members of Milk The Funk (currently organized by Josh Regenold and Andy Carter). It works like a "Secret Santa" where everyone puts their name in a bucket, and semi-randomly Josh picks people to secretly send beer to. People are generally paired with people on the other side of the US (currently the BIF is limited to the US). A limited quantity of beer is established by Josh, with a portion of that beer being beers that the sender brewed themselves. Sign-ups occur a month or so before the target dates, which are usually in the spring and fall. Below are the reviews and comments on beers received for the BIF.
- Fall 2021 BIF Discussion
- Fall 2020 BIF Discussion
- Fall 2019 BIF Discussion
- Summer 2018 BIF Discussion
- Fall 2017 BIF Discussion
- Spring 2017 BIF Discussion
BJCP 2021 Contributions
In 2020, Dan Pixley organized suggested updates to the BJCP for the "European Sour Ale" and" American Wild Ale" categories and submitted them to Gordon Strong for review by the BJCP. Some but not all of our suggested changes were accepted in the 2021 BJCP Guidelines. Some suggestions may have been added, but worded differently than what was suggested. These suggestions and all related discussions are archived below.
- Suggested style guidelines changes.
- Intro guide to judging sour beer (not used by the BJCP). Wiki version here.
- Style name brainstorm for new "lactic sour" style (none of our suggestions were used).
- MTF The Podcast episode with Gordon Strong and Sandy Cockerham from the BJCP which started this discussion.
Related MTF Discussions on these changes:
- Main thread with all of our submissions to the BJCP.
- Initial thread to MTF of our goals with this project.
- Reviewing the "Intro guide to judging sour beer" document.
- Isovaleric acid thread might be allowable in small amounts poll.
- Flanders Red should allow ethyl acetate thread.
- Lactic sour ale style name poll (none of our suggestions were used).
Yeast Exchange Project
- Use this thread to participate in the yeast exchange.
- Questions/comments thread on the MTF yeast exchange.
Wild Capture Swap
DeWayne Schaaf organizes a MTF Wild Capture swap.
Collaboration Brew
Dustin Carver organizes a collaboration brew that includes both commercial and homebrewers (ex: Toolbox "Truth From Heart", Dionysus Brewing "Milk The Funk #2).
- Milk the Funk - Collaboration Brew #3: Spontaneous. A long-term project for people sharing their spontaneous fermentation ferments.
- Collaboration Brew #4: Mud King. "Mud King" is a constantly growing mixed culture maintained by DeWayne Schaaf. The idea is that DeWayne will send a vial of Mud King to all participants (including an extra vial of lactic acid yeast or kveik), and they will brew their own recipe using Mud King. Once that beer is done, they will brew again using the yeast cake of Mud King but also adding either their own isolated yeast, or by open cooling overnight. The goal with the second brew is to potentially collect more variety of microbes to evaluate whether or not there is a "drift" in the character of future beers produced, either due to microbe ratios changing, or the introduction of new microbes (brewers are encouraged to keep a vial of the yeast trub from this addition of wild microbes). A Google Doc will collect all of the information about each person's brew, and how it turned out. Over 120 US MTF members, and 40 international members to participate.
Meetups
Milk The Funk hosts several regular meetups. Anyone can organize a meetup and post it to the "Events" tab in the MTF Facebook group. Meetups are also generally bottle shares as well but don't have to be. Reoccurring meetups include the following:
- HomebrewCon in the US: Jeff Mello from Bootleg Biology collects dregs from the bottle share, and later releases a one time blend of the microbes collected. This is generally held somewhere within the conference building after a seminar or at a convenient time.
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Great American Beer Festival Meetup: this is generally hosted by James Howat at Black Project Spontaneous Ales in Denver on Friday morning (10:00 am) the week of GABF.Black Project is now defunct. - Brew Con London Meetup: similar to the HomebrewCon meetup with Jeff Mello of Bootleg Biology, Brewlab collects dregs from each beer shared at the MTF meetup at Brew Con London, creating the "Great Brettanomyces Megablend".
- Carnivale Brettanomyces festival always hosts several MTF meet ups and bottle shares.
Yeast Company Collaborations
- Bootleg Biology mixed culture from the MTF HomebrewCon meetup dregs.
- Mainiacal Yeast Collab Blend with 4 kveik cultures and 2 strains of L. plantarum.
US TTB Formula Approval Helper
Michael Thorpe and Milk The Funk maintain a list of ingredients that have been approved by the TTB for a specific brewery to use but are not on the TTB exempt list. Help us out by adding your TTB approved ingredient to the list, or use this list to help you get approval for an ingredient that your brewery uses.
Other Community Projects
- Culturing and trading project for Julius Simonaitis's kveik yeast.