Shifting Forms
TRVE Brewing Co.

a mixed culture ale aged on hard maple, really exciting on paper, but i wasnt blown away by this. one of my first beers after a dry month, i had a ton of time to anticipate this and get my hopes up. real tasty still, but nowhere close to the life changing brew i hoped it might be. its got a little of that cereal dusty thing to the finish which i usually get in wild beer thats too new, but this has been in my fridge over a month, so not sure why that element is so present, it really lingers in the aftertaste. its also quite a bit more tart than expected, more sour and less bretty than a lot of their mixed culture stuff has been over the years, less interesting somehow too. im not sure how much the maple really adds, its neither objectively woody like oak brings to most beer, or mellow in an appreciable way. there is maybe some astringency to it and a little earthiness, but i dont reckon it makes a huge contribution to this. what we are left with then is a sort of tart wheat brew with a little funk and less refinement than i am used to from these guys, perhaps a dry hopping of some kind, a little green grape and kiwi fruit character late. nice carbonation and dryness, but i wanted more from the maple and a little more polished fermentation profile. overall not bad, but my hopes for this were astronomical...