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Forest & Main - The Brewery

 

 

 

 

 

How do you stand out in the crowded craft beer market? By not standing out at all. Rather than naming their funky farmhouse ale, competent team at Forest & Main allow the earthy, hoppy, yeasty flavors to do all the talking.

Turbid in its pale golden pour, the beer looks as doughy as it eventually tastes. With fruit, spice and wine rounding out the nose, an earthen waft of the farmlands brings its dank and musty perfume of horse blanket and saddle leather. Doughy with a bready sweetness of sourdough and sugar cookie, the grain flavors are redolent with pilsneresque simplicity.

The sweetness dissolves and the musty character temporarily lifts as the flavors of fruit and spice nestle into the tastebuds. Pineapple, orange, lemon, apple and papaya carry all the charm of orchard fruit, citrus and tropical varieties. The spice of clove, ginger, white pepper and soft balsa woods balance the fruit and blend into the bright hop flavors of tangerine and white wine. Finishing bitter, acute and playfully acidic, the ale lingers with those barnyardy perfumes returning on the after palate.

Medium-light and creamy, the beer carries a champagne-like zest across a wheaty pillow with the softness of flour and oats soothing the palate much like vanilla. Tangy and bright, the ale's aftertaste trends bitter with herbal, spicy, grassy hops, a brisk peppery taste and a short vinous refreshment.

 

 

 

 

750 mL bottle. Took me a while to figure out what I was drinking. Hazy pale yellow. Smell is citrus with a hefty Hallertau Blanc aroma. Something like pilsner malt. Tastes pungent and very hoppy. The Hallertau Blanc is really distinctive. Still tastes like pilsner malt. Medium light body. The hop flavor is remarkable. Really nice, but very simple.