Fìon
Fyne Ales Ltd

maybe the weirdest beer i had in scotland, a product of fyne ales, but under a label they call origins brewing, which i believe is where their wild projects come from, neat little concept and this is another fascinating beer from it, wished i could have sourced more of them and visited the brewery, but was thankful to find this one anyway. its done on white grape pomace, and its intensely underripe and pithy and gritty and intense, earthy in a raw sort of way, verdant and astringent and curious, hard to drink a ton of, but each sip sort of takes my palate to a place it hasnt been before, really sour, but almost as much from the fruit as from the ferment. gorgeous packaging on this, green glass, sexy label, way cool, crazy pale beer, whitewashed, it almost looks like lemonade, no real malt color or body here at all, fizzy but without much head after the initial pour, some haziness but still delicate looking. they dont tell us what the grapes are, but its obvious they are white and not real ripe at the time of pressing, this smells and tastes like green tomato and green gooseberry and a green pear thats almost too hard to bite into, granny smith apple, all of that. there is nice white wine character too though, and this is vinous for sure, not a lot of malt to it, maybe some unmalted wheat, thinnish feeling and flavored mostly by the fruit element. lots of minerality, some green glass weirdness, white floral character maybe elderflower, drying and sharp on the tongue, mouthwatering, funky, watermelon rind, white currant, a little harsh but this beer is strange enough i can hardly set my glass down, hints of botanical gin, sulfur, and champagne. so odd. too sour to drink a lot of, but the wild profile is there too, and this is distinctive on the ferment even with all the acid. not quite what i expected, but a one of a kind beer, hits almost like sour cider for a minute in the absence of more malt structure and flavor. different but good, an easy effort to appreciate but a challenging brew nevertheless...