Cuvee 30
Twisted Pine Brewing Company

man its been an awfully long time since i had a beer from twisted pine, like seriously ages, so it was cool to see this, quite a bit more ambitious than anything i ever remember them brewing when i was a colorado resident, but this is for their 30th anniversary, so why not go all out. good to see evolution. its a mixed fermentation wild thing, done in gin barrels with pinot noir grapes, a belgian blonde starting point, lots going on, and interesting for sure, but also pretty amateurish to me and not quite what i was hoping for on the ferment, a little cheesy and sweaty, a shame, because the fruit part is lovely, the gin barrels is a neat touch, but this one is a tough drink overall. the nose on this has some acetic intensity, some weird musty maybe brett character, but seems like backyard bucket stuff, its messy and not great, even if you like them real sour, and thats true in the taste too, notes of foot and wet dog, some way back belgian yeast nuance is cool with the juniper and almost menthol intensity of the gin, that is a nice synergy, but its totally overshadowed by the off flavors this comes with. the fruit is cool, tannic and tart on its own, pretty recognizable as pinot noir, red raspberry and light plum character to it, also nice with the gin, and the grain is light but sufficient, as is the carbonation. im a huge fan of wild beer and mixed fermentation stuff, but this has me wishing they skipped the weird yeasts and just went with a clean belgian blonde into the gin barrels with the fruit, all of those elements are successful. a bit of a miss for me, and a shame, im not one to advise a brewery to stay in their lane or not innovate or try stuff, but the quality is pretty far off on this one, and without the cool grape and gin character this would be a total disaster, they have to know that right? cool they tried this, but it really didnt work out. maybe time will be good to it in the bottle, sometimes these things clean themselves up over time, but in my experience once its yucky, it generally stays yucky, and this is yucky. well below even modest expectations unfortunately...