Is Twin Peaks Part Of Cincinnati’s Brewery Scene… Somehow?

Written By: The Gnarly Gnome
Photography By: The Gnarly Gnome

5/13/25

What makes a taproom, a taproom? What makes a brewery or what makes a brewpub? These are questions that most folks don’t spend a minute thinking about, and that I can spend way more time than I care to admit obsessing over. I’ve written before about the definitions of these, and I’m still not really settled on what I came up with.

You might be curious about how I ended up at this point, and it all centers around a place called Twin Peaks. I wrote about Twin Peaks when their first location opened up here in Greater Cincinnati (over in West Chester), and as they’ve grown, things have only become more interesting.

No, It’s Not Themed To A TV Show

On the surface, Twin Peaks is a lot like Hooters. The chain has the feeling of some strange, midwestern mountain lodge, except that all the waitresses wear short shorts and tiny shirts that definitely wouldn’t keep them warm in the mountains. Hypothermia would rip through the ranks quicker than they probably go through buckets of ranch dressing at the restaurant.

The food is fine… and the beer selection is ok, if not leaning towards actually pretty solid. There’s one glaring flaw in the beer product, though… temperature. They serve all their beer at an excruciating 29 degrees, which means that every single time you order a draft beer, it comes out iced over. I’m not kidding, your tall draft beer can have a literal iceberg floating in front of your nose as you try to have a sip.

If you’ve been around beer for any stretch of time, you know that isn’t the best way to enjoy the stuff.

Why would we care? And what does ANY of this have to do with a blog that writes about the finer points of the beverage industry and culture around it in Cincinnati? It’s because of four beer taps. That’s only around 15% of the beer on tap at Twin Peaks. For beers that make it all different.

They make the beer.

I’m Not Claiming They’re A Taproom… But I’m Not Saying They Aren’t, Either.

This is why I keep trying to figure this out… While at first glance, there’s no way that I can call Twin Peaks a “taproom” – no matter what definition I use, it keeps coming back that they sort of are.

The dictionary says that to be a taproom, a space only needs to be “a room in which alcoholic drinks, especially beer, are available on tap; a bar in a hotel or inn.” – By that, they’re definitely a taproom.

My own definition in my article that I wrote about it goes further – I said in my article that a taproom is “a place that serves beer… and mostly beer.” – Ok… I’m shooting myself in the foot with this.

I’ll now go a step further and say that in the traditional usage amongst craft beer drinkers, when we call a place a taproom, we’re expecting it to be a bar that serves their own beer… and the majority of that beer is their own beer. When I use that definition, though, I remember places like Quarter Barrel Brewery up in Oxford, where most of the beer wasn’t theirs. That didn’t mean they weren’t a taproom.

You understand the confusion, then, right? They serve a ton of beer… mostly beer – but is it mostly “theirs”?

So… Where’s This Beer Come From?

I’ve been stuck on this part for literally years. When Twin Peaks first came out with their own line of “house beers” – that is, beers that bear their own name – they didn’t make those beers. Atwater in Detroit (coincidentally, that’s one of the taprooms that made me fall in love with this whole thing) was producing the brands on a contract basis.

That all changed in 2014 when the brand opened its own brewery, located attached to its Irving, Texas, restaurant. Slowly, the brands moved in-house, and that led me to my conundrum. Were the beers that I drank here in Greater Cincinnati going to be made by them or contracted by someone else?

That answer is surprisingly hard to get to the bottom of. Ask your bartender, or even a manager, and you’re going to get a quick answer – yeah, of course we make it. We always have. When I know you haven’t always – I have a hard time trusting that answer. I have dug, and dug, and dug trying to confirm that all the beer is brewed by Twin Peaks, and have not proven that it isn’t.

That’s not really enough, though – is it?

What About It?

The more I try to figure it out, the more I think that the four beers that are Twin Peaks’ house beers are likely to be actual house beers brewed by Twin Peaks. That means in my book, they are somewhere on the Cincinnati beer spectrum. What I haven’t figured out, yet, is what that spectrum looks like, and what it matters to me, if at all.

I’m curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on the matter, for sure. Do you care where your brewery is? Do you care who makes the beer you’re drinking? Are you more likely to go to a restaurant that makes its own beer?

No matter where your mind rests on this whole “craft beer spectrum” idea that I’ve been figuring out, if you DO head over to Twin Peaks, get your hands on one of these beers:

• Twin Peaks – Light
  • This is your standard light lager. Crisp, easy drinking… It’s the perfect beer to be served at “Way Too Cold”. I’m joking, sort of, it’s not bad.
• Twin Peaks – Dirty Blonde
  • Not really a ‘blonde ale’ – that’s by name only. It’s an unfiltered American Wheat ale. They serve it with a big slice of orange, but it doesn’t need it. When you get this poured into a non-frozen glass this beer is a solid, easy drinking full-bodied and refreshing wheat beer.
• Twin Peaks – IPA
  • Floral, citrusy – I like to think of this more as a hopped-up amber ale, or a hoppy red ale versus an IPA. It still leans into the crisp drinkability that I can only assume most of the folks who come in to eat a bunch of wings are looking for.
• Twin Peaks – Knotty Brunette
  • This malty, brown ale is probably served the biggest disservice with the ice-cold method of serving that Twin Peaks is famous for. It’s rich, toasty, and if you let it warm up, it shows some really great flavors that otherwise get completely lost.
    The beers are all fine (other than being served too cold, of course) and worth a try.

I don’t think that I’m ready to add them to my list of Cincinnati Breweries and Taprooms… but I think they belong somewhere on some kind of a list on my website.