pnwgardenbuddiesneoly:

Rock-hard, lumpy, and larger than a softball, pale-green Osage oranges seem to be no good for anything but a twisted ankle.

But to Levi Funk, they smelled like opportunity.

On a walk through the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum’s Longenecker Horticultural Gardens
last fall with his family, Funk picked up the strange fruit and noticed
a surprisingly pleasant floral, citrusy scent. Funk immediately thought
of the potential uses at Funk Factory Geuzeria, the sour beer brewery near the Arboretum that he owns.

The
surprisingly pleasant floral, citrusy scent of Osage oranges made its
way into a unique beer produced with this strange fruit. Courtesy Funk Factory

“We are constantly on the lookout for fruit — and fruit closer to our backyard,” says Funk.

So Funk and his wife Amanda reached out to David Stevens, the curator
of Longenecker. They asked if they could get some Osage oranges to make
a test batch of beer. While the Arboretum is a research site devoted to
maintaining natural cycles — including letting fruit fall where it may —
the curated Longenecker Horticultural Gardens are more ornamental and
less wild.

“We’re a little different here but we still don’t want to encourage
people to pick up and harvest things,” says Stevens, who liked the idea
and gave Osage oranges to Funk Factory. “I thought it fit in with what
we are trying to do, which is to advance knowledge of our natural
resources.”

The first two beers out of this collaboration will be on tap at the Funk Factory taproom at 1602 Gilson St. for a tasting event
on Sunday, May 6 at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Arboretum staff will join to
discuss the fruits and the garden’s practices. A portion of the proceeds
will benefit the Arboretum. In addition to brewing with Osage orange,
Funk Factory produced a beer with American persimmons from Longenecker.

Osage
orange in Longenecker Horticultural Gardens. : The hard, lumpy and
large Osage orange fruit has rarely found productive uses, until a local
brewery turned it into beer. Photo by Susan Day

“It was quite interesting in a good way,” says Stevens, who got to
try an early batch of the Osage orange beer and describes it as having
“citrusy overtones.” “I think it lends itself well to the sour format of
this beer style.”

Originally native to Texas and Oklahoma, the Osage orange spread
throughout the Midwest as a hedgerow plant, says Stevens, who worked at a
botanical garden in Texas earlier in his career.

“To my knowledge the fruit had never been used for anything,” he says.

Funk Factory already works with local farmers to source a wide
variety of fruits from Wisconsin, including raspberries, currants and
tart cherries. But it’s hard to get much more local than the Arboretum,
which is just on the other side of South Park Street from the brewery.

“There’s a sense of location about a lot of our beers already. So
being able to connect that with the Arboretum was just a natural fit,”
says Funk. He’s looking to partner with Stevens and the Arboretum again
in the future to brew larger batches and consider other fruits as
they’re available.

He’ll have a number of options to consider. Longenecker Horticultural
Gardens boasts ornamental pears, the strangely custard-like paw paws,
and crabapples, which Stevens has considered collecting to make hard
cider. Those are just a few of the 2,500 different species in
Longenecker, which also has one of the largest displays of lilacs in
North America.

The large collections, the fruit and, yes, the beer are all
opportunities that Stevens taps into to share what the Longenecker
Horticultural Gardens has to offer.

“Especially in the growing urban and younger demographic of Madison, I
thought it was good vehicle to get our message out there and to get
people excited and interested in what we do here,” he says.

Part of me thinks they’re out of their mind using that fruit of all fruits while another part of me thinks this is creative genius. Guess what they say is true; you can make beer out of almost anything.

Arboretum brews up partnership to turn unlikely fruits into local beer