Heather and Matt Carroll at Funktastic Meads when it was still under construction. (BizSense file photo)
A Midlothian mead maker is expanding into the beer business.
Funktastic Meads is preparing to roll out its new offshoot, Funktastic Beer. The meadery, which opened about two years ago at 1212 Alverser Plaza, recently received approval from Virginia ABC to serve beer it has outside contract brewers make.
Matt Carroll, who owns Funktastic with his wife Heather, opened the meadery in 2022 after leaving a career in chemistry. Mead is made from fermented honey. While Funktastic’s lineup includes traditional meads, it also makes meads with unusual ingredients such as Swedish Fish and Carolina Reaper peppers and has variations like a mead margarita and a root beer-inspired mead.
The push into beer was born last year, when a former colleague approached Carroll with a job opportunity to return to the corporate world. It piqued his interest enough to go through the interview process, during which Carroll said he decided that if he were passed up for the job, he’d double-down on Funktastic.
“I said to Heather, ‘If I don’t get this job, I want to move Funktastic Meads into beer as well,’” Carroll said. “I was the person not chosen, and away we went.”
Funktastic has lined up contract deals with small breweries to make the beer recipes Carroll cooks up. He said that so far he’s working with The Answer Brewpub in Henrico and North Carolina-based Funguys Brewing, but that those contract brewing agreements aren’t exclusive.
Carroll said he decided to go the contract brewing route because it both saves space in his 1,500-square-foot storefront and allows for smaller, limited runs of beers.
“(The beers) will change on a regular basis,” Carroll said. “It’s sort of our thing at the meadery: low volume and new, unique products all the time.”
The meadery opened two years ago near Chesterfield Towne Center. (Mike Platania photo)
Carroll said he sometimes see folks confused when they walk by the front of the meadery. Adding beer is a kind of marketing strategy to combat that confusion.
“I’d say the majority of people have never heard of mead before. If they have, they may have had it at a renaissance fair or something like that, and what we do is very, very different than that,” Carroll said. “If we can attract people by offering a beverage that they’re familiar with, i.e., beer, then I can get them in the door and we can start talking more about the uniqueness of mead and the crazy things that we can do with it.”
Funktastic Beer is planning to debut in early April. Carroll said its beers will run the gamut stylistically, and he’ll also be blending some beers with meads in-house.
“We’re going to start with three beers: a Japanese lager, a pastry stout and a fruited sour,” Carroll said, noting that the business will soon add a few IPAs, a red lager and a hard seltzer. The first three beers will be on tap and subsequent brews will be canned. In total, Carroll said about 6 barrels of beer have been brewed for the first run.
Carroll said he doesn’t have any big plans for Funktastic Beer, and if he were to pursue distributing it, he’d likely do so on a limited basis through self-distribution, which recently was made legal.
Funktastic’s meads, meanwhile, are distributed to bottle shops and restaurants throughout Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.
He said that the mead business has been doing well, and that Funktastic is building a presence in the national craft mead market, namely through an annual mead festival it hosts each fall.
Heather and Matt Carroll at Funktastic Meads when it was still under construction. (BizSense file photo)
A Midlothian mead maker is expanding into the beer business.
Funktastic Meads is preparing to roll out its new offshoot, Funktastic Beer. The meadery, which opened about two years ago at 1212 Alverser Plaza, recently received approval from Virginia ABC to serve beer it has outside contract brewers make.
Matt Carroll, who owns Funktastic with his wife Heather, opened the meadery in 2022 after leaving a career in chemistry. Mead is made from fermented honey. While Funktastic’s lineup includes traditional meads, it also makes meads with unusual ingredients such as Swedish Fish and Carolina Reaper peppers and has variations like a mead margarita and a root beer-inspired mead.
The push into beer was born last year, when a former colleague approached Carroll with a job opportunity to return to the corporate world. It piqued his interest enough to go through the interview process, during which Carroll said he decided that if he were passed up for the job, he’d double-down on Funktastic.
“I said to Heather, ‘If I don’t get this job, I want to move Funktastic Meads into beer as well,’” Carroll said. “I was the person not chosen, and away we went.”
Funktastic has lined up contract deals with small breweries to make the beer recipes Carroll cooks up. He said that so far he’s working with The Answer Brewpub in Henrico and North Carolina-based Funguys Brewing, but that those contract brewing agreements aren’t exclusive.
Carroll said he decided to go the contract brewing route because it both saves space in his 1,500-square-foot storefront and allows for smaller, limited runs of beers.
“(The beers) will change on a regular basis,” Carroll said. “It’s sort of our thing at the meadery: low volume and new, unique products all the time.”
The meadery opened two years ago near Chesterfield Towne Center. (Mike Platania photo)
Carroll said he sometimes see folks confused when they walk by the front of the meadery. Adding beer is a kind of marketing strategy to combat that confusion.
“I’d say the majority of people have never heard of mead before. If they have, they may have had it at a renaissance fair or something like that, and what we do is very, very different than that,” Carroll said. “If we can attract people by offering a beverage that they’re familiar with, i.e., beer, then I can get them in the door and we can start talking more about the uniqueness of mead and the crazy things that we can do with it.”
Funktastic Beer is planning to debut in early April. Carroll said its beers will run the gamut stylistically, and he’ll also be blending some beers with meads in-house.
“We’re going to start with three beers: a Japanese lager, a pastry stout and a fruited sour,” Carroll said, noting that the business will soon add a few IPAs, a red lager and a hard seltzer. The first three beers will be on tap and subsequent brews will be canned. In total, Carroll said about 6 barrels of beer have been brewed for the first run.
Carroll said he doesn’t have any big plans for Funktastic Beer, and if he were to pursue distributing it, he’d likely do so on a limited basis through self-distribution, which recently was made legal.
Funktastic’s meads, meanwhile, are distributed to bottle shops and restaurants throughout Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.
He said that the mead business has been doing well, and that Funktastic is building a presence in the national craft mead market, namely through an annual mead festival it hosts each fall.
Brewers (and meaders) have a lot of pressure now from three sources: their own success stimulated competition, divvying up their customer base; science, which has released reports that alcohol consumption is unhealthy in any amount; and, the freedom to produce marijuana in small amounts at home, which has created its own “black market”, mostly one with free products. It was fun watching that business line grow but I think the market is evolving in the opposite direction now.
I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted, Bruce. I think your last point is a big one. I know plenty of people who have set the bottle down in favor of the plant. Now, that’s purely anecdotal, but there are reports that have surfaced that discuss this very trend.
With that being said I sincerely hope nothing but success for the Carrolls!
I won’t start to worry until i see Total Wine and More start to close stores.
Your point is a good one but Total offers sales everyday. They market like madmen. Youngkins administration has been cutting staff in the ABC stores hoping to increase the bottom line to stem off dwindling sales but staffing isn’t the problem. The state has taxed their products unrealistically. The alcohol industry is swimming against the current. It has to respond with competitive pricing.
As someone from a long restaurant career, I can say that Virginia is way behind the curve when it comes to ABC laws. I’ve dealt with liquor authorities in Maryland, DC, New York, North Carolina, and now Virginia. It’s a state-run monopoly that would be illegal if a private company did it.