GENEVA, NEW YORK

With four locations in the Finger Lakes, including Canandaigua, Honeyone and Macedon, TWISTED RAIL BREWING’s Geneva pub is inside a historic tan brick movie theatre. Opened in 2019, a red brick walled lobby leads patrons to bistro-tabled, wood-floored main space where a U-shaped bar and leather-couched mezzanine (with old theatre tables) traverse the backspaced windowed brew tanks.

Utilizing reclaimed wood throughout provides a splendid antique design. At the bar, two TV’s surround the centralized tap list and pub food menu. Whiskey, rum and gin are available alongside the twelve proprietary house beers.

During my Saturday afternoon in December ’23 voyage, I quaffed a cherry wheat, rye IPA, barrel aged Scotch ale and three dark ales, picking up a few to-go cans reviewed in Beer Index.

Sweet-tart red cherry fizz greeted powdered sugared wheat base for Cherry Wheat Ale, a mildly hopped summertime spritzer.

Dry rye malting charged the piney orange-grapefruit blur of medium-full-bodied Hunters Rye IPA, retaining sharply citric residual spicing.

Creamy Madagascar vanilla abutted brown chocolate syrup for Vanilla Cream Porter, leaving dewy moss upon tertiary cherry and plum dried fruiting.

Molasses oats sweetness guarded the Black Forest-caked chocolate-cherry mesh of luscious Quaker Express Oatmeal Stout.

Treacly black chocolate syrup draped the creamy vanilla sweetness and mild espresso bittering of Vozkal Russian Imperial Stout, a luxuriously robust mocha java digestif.

A hearty nightcap, Barrel Aged End Of The Line Scotch Ale let dry bourbon warmth seep into chocolate and toffee sweetness plus mild sherry-port wining over toasted oak-chipped vanilla tannins.