A Pull Unknown
Forest & Main - The Brewery
- From:
- Forest & Main - The Brewery
- Pennsylvania, United States
- Style:
- American IPA
- ABV:
- 7%
- Score:
- +7 ratings needed
- Avg:
- 3.95 | pDev: 8.61%
- Ratings:
- | reviews: 1
- Status:
- Retired
- Rated:
- Aug 23, 2018
- Added:
- Jul 12, 2018
- Wants:
- 0
- Gots:
- 0
NO SCORE
-
-
A 7% IPA brewed with Pilsner and wheat and hopped with Cashmere and Styrian Wolf.
A Pull Unknown, in a sonorous voice from the ground, tells us this story. The portholes were white and blockered, thick with the sea of sweetened milk, you accepted it. As you drifted upwards the white turned faintly pink, and then strongly so. Breaking the surface you found a world all new, to you. The shore was littered, positively, with raspberries. You squashy foot along to the jungles edge. Trees sing with vanilla bean bark, and flowers blink their candy orange eyes. You step into the dark cool jungle and a new level of sound encases you in a terror that is, in the end, bliss.
A Pull Unknown, in a sonorous voice from the ground, tells us this story. The portholes were white and blockered, thick with the sea of sweetened milk, you accepted it. As you drifted upwards the white turned faintly pink, and then strongly so. Breaking the surface you found a world all new, to you. The shore was littered, positively, with raspberries. You squashy foot along to the jungles edge. Trees sing with vanilla bean bark, and flowers blink their candy orange eyes. You step into the dark cool jungle and a new level of sound encases you in a terror that is, in the end, bliss.
Recent ratings and reviews.
Reviewed by fmccormi from California
4.34/5 rDev +9.9%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.25
4.34/5 rDev +9.9%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 5 | overall: 4.25
Straight pour from a 16oz can to a tumbler. Normally I wouldn’t use a tumbler for an aromatic beer like a (D)IPA, but I bought this limited-run Forest and Main tumbler at the brewery just a couple of weeks ago so I wanted to enjoy this weird beer in the brewery’s own weird way. This can was packaged on June 29, 2018, according to a black ink canning date on the underside of the can (“BY APPOINTMENT ONLY 06/29/2018”). That would make this beer twelve days old at the time of consumption.
Appearance (4.5): This beer pours out a solid two-plus fingers of meringue-like, ecru head that dies down slowly, even in a wide, straight glass like this tumbler. The body is a tastefully hazy, deep orange body with tan undertones—excellent look for the hazy variety of these (D)IPAs. The head leaves classic hoppy lacing, with a broken collar marking what was the surface of the head, connected to a thin film on the current surface by tightly spaced, thick and splotchy legs and wide swaths of thin foam.
Smell (4.25): A gentle mix of honeysuckle, navel orange oil, a touch of earthy petrichor, wet grass, a subtle, some unidentified earthy, spicy aroma, and maybe … sage, is that possible? All of this gently wafts out of the glass, boosted by a dry, floury, cracked grain body that offers an earthy complexity that often gets lost in hop bombs. As the beer opens up, a very light honeydew note gets picked up with super-ripe papaya, as well. Complex, unexpected, and lovely.
Taste (4.25): This really took me by surprise here—it’s kind of grain-forward, but I like it. Its malt component is beautifully smooth and nuanced, with a seamless blend of light toffee, wet multigrain dough, whole wheat biscuits, and a very subtle, quietly very earthy spice that suggests the slightest amounts of grains of paradise and white pepper. That said, it doesn’t strike you as “malty,” per se, as if it left a sweet or rich feel on the palate—it’s so much more than that and never dips into an impression of sweetness. And, we got hops here, too. It seems that the hops contribute tannic berry skins, pinot grigio minerality, a very subtle lemon zest, some fresh cut grass, and a little bit of … orange creamsicle. No sign of booze, and everything is incredibly well-integrated.
Mouthfeel (5.0): This is outstanding. This is the smoothest beer I’ve drank in a long time, it would seem, which is saying something considering my propensity for über-smooth NE-style (D)IPAs. The body is medium-full, creamy and juicy, whereas the carbonation is velvet-smooth, if velvet could sneak up on you. The bubbles spread across all surfaces easily and completely, foaming up with a nice, medium-thick layer of softly dissipating fuzz.
Overall (4.25): To be honest, I had no idea what I was about to drink with this beer. I knew that Forest and Main considers it an IPA. I had tasted three or four other IPAs at the brewery a couple of weeks ago, on tap, with a dear friend to enjoy Philly for the weekend. None of them tasted anything like this, and for the most part those IPAs didn’t taste like most other IPAs on the market right now. This is smooth, earthy, and modestly bitter. It’s almost like an English IPA brewed not with Maris Otter and wormwood or whatever, but with a variety of fresh-cracked grains and an expressive yeast that doesn’t hit me like Chico, Conan, London III, or any other expected yeasts. It almost evinces biere de garde qualities, which also doesn’t quite make sense. Regardless, it’s delicious. I suspect the mixture of Cashmere and Styrian Wolf—two hop varieties I’m really not familiar with, in terms of flavor and aroma profiles—is contributing a lot of the unplaceable characteristics here, but I also suspect that a well-handled, unique strain of yeast and beautifully nuanced grains contribute quite a bit, too. Don’t expect a tongue-peeling hop bomb, sponge-worthy juice bomb, or Werther’s-dripping malt bomb. It’s just … its own thing. And it’s beautiful.
Jul 12, 2018Appearance (4.5): This beer pours out a solid two-plus fingers of meringue-like, ecru head that dies down slowly, even in a wide, straight glass like this tumbler. The body is a tastefully hazy, deep orange body with tan undertones—excellent look for the hazy variety of these (D)IPAs. The head leaves classic hoppy lacing, with a broken collar marking what was the surface of the head, connected to a thin film on the current surface by tightly spaced, thick and splotchy legs and wide swaths of thin foam.
Smell (4.25): A gentle mix of honeysuckle, navel orange oil, a touch of earthy petrichor, wet grass, a subtle, some unidentified earthy, spicy aroma, and maybe … sage, is that possible? All of this gently wafts out of the glass, boosted by a dry, floury, cracked grain body that offers an earthy complexity that often gets lost in hop bombs. As the beer opens up, a very light honeydew note gets picked up with super-ripe papaya, as well. Complex, unexpected, and lovely.
Taste (4.25): This really took me by surprise here—it’s kind of grain-forward, but I like it. Its malt component is beautifully smooth and nuanced, with a seamless blend of light toffee, wet multigrain dough, whole wheat biscuits, and a very subtle, quietly very earthy spice that suggests the slightest amounts of grains of paradise and white pepper. That said, it doesn’t strike you as “malty,” per se, as if it left a sweet or rich feel on the palate—it’s so much more than that and never dips into an impression of sweetness. And, we got hops here, too. It seems that the hops contribute tannic berry skins, pinot grigio minerality, a very subtle lemon zest, some fresh cut grass, and a little bit of … orange creamsicle. No sign of booze, and everything is incredibly well-integrated.
Mouthfeel (5.0): This is outstanding. This is the smoothest beer I’ve drank in a long time, it would seem, which is saying something considering my propensity for über-smooth NE-style (D)IPAs. The body is medium-full, creamy and juicy, whereas the carbonation is velvet-smooth, if velvet could sneak up on you. The bubbles spread across all surfaces easily and completely, foaming up with a nice, medium-thick layer of softly dissipating fuzz.
Overall (4.25): To be honest, I had no idea what I was about to drink with this beer. I knew that Forest and Main considers it an IPA. I had tasted three or four other IPAs at the brewery a couple of weeks ago, on tap, with a dear friend to enjoy Philly for the weekend. None of them tasted anything like this, and for the most part those IPAs didn’t taste like most other IPAs on the market right now. This is smooth, earthy, and modestly bitter. It’s almost like an English IPA brewed not with Maris Otter and wormwood or whatever, but with a variety of fresh-cracked grains and an expressive yeast that doesn’t hit me like Chico, Conan, London III, or any other expected yeasts. It almost evinces biere de garde qualities, which also doesn’t quite make sense. Regardless, it’s delicious. I suspect the mixture of Cashmere and Styrian Wolf—two hop varieties I’m really not familiar with, in terms of flavor and aroma profiles—is contributing a lot of the unplaceable characteristics here, but I also suspect that a well-handled, unique strain of yeast and beautifully nuanced grains contribute quite a bit, too. Don’t expect a tongue-peeling hop bomb, sponge-worthy juice bomb, or Werther’s-dripping malt bomb. It’s just … its own thing. And it’s beautiful.
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