The Empty Sea
Forest & Main - The Brewery

This pours a fairly dark black color, with a small fluffy head, and a little bit of lacing.

This smells rich and fudgy, with a nice oakiness, and a touch of smoke.

This is really great, but I’m not all that surprised considering the overall high quality of the brewery. The oak layering adds some nice oaky spice, and the smoky, fruity, roasty, and very fudgy porter is just excellent to me.

This is medium bodied, very creamy, and rich, with no booziness and a great drinkability.

A lot of careful thought and process planning went into this one - it was great.

 

 

From a can. The can was a blind beer, and I thought it was a nut brown at first. I was totally wrong on the style. I did not write this review blind.

The beer pours a very dark brown color. The head is quite thick, 3 finger, tan colored, and very long lasting. Some lacing on the glass.
The nose is malty as heck. Lots of grain, and the grain is smoked. Some roasted nut aroma also.
Flavor is malty as heck. Roasted and nutty flavor. There's a bit of caramel and chocolate in this beer, and some licorice flavor as well.
Decent body for the style. The ABV is somewhat hidden, though not much.
This is quite delicious. I am digging it a lot.

Canned March, 2022. Pours a root beer brown that settles into a deeper shade of brown once in the glass. Plenty of foamy beige head with good retention and lacing. Overall, very attractive beer.

Aroma is a really nice combination of sweet molasses and light roast.

Taste is heavy on the roast, with pumpernickel and other bready notes present, along with just enough sweetness to keep the balance right. Nice, dry finish. Medium + bodied.

Overall, this exceeded my expectations. Very good beer.

 

 

16oz can purchased from the fridge as a single for $4.50. "Canned in March 2022" on the label, so this beer is approximately 4 months old.

Look: Pours out a very dark brown, almost black color with a light tan-colored head with small bubbles that dissipated pretty quickly. When there is not much volume in the glass, it looks like a chestnut brown color with nice clarity.

Smell: Very nice aromas. Nice roasty, toasty notes. Sweet molasses/brown sugar note up front. Warm chocolate and vanilla aromas on the finish. Subtle licorice note. Some earthy hop aromas too. Generic warm spice notes; kind of reminds me of gingerbread. Notes of brown bread/pumpernickel.

Taste: Yummy. This is really tasty. Up front, it has a really nice dark roasted malt and caramel malt flavor - it's not sweet but it has a nice perception of sweetness. The finish is dry, and has a bit of charcoally/chalkly character. Notes of licorice and dark chocolate on the finish. This beer, despite is darkness, is pretty crisp and clean. I really enjoy the smoky, charcoally finish. I don't really get any fruity notes here, but for some reason the taste of the beer is reminiscent of black forest cake to me. Very drinkable. The bottom of the can had tons of extra flavor, some additional richness and complexity.

Feel: This beer is on the low side of medium body. It has a bit of chewiness to it, but overall it drinks very light for its 8% ABV. Carbonation is relatively high.

Overall: It's been ages since I have had a Baltic Porter. This is a nice reminder of the deliciousness of this style. I think that one of the coolest things about this style and this beer as an example is that 1) it's so interesting that it's a lager and 2) it's awesome that you get such deep chocolate and charcoal flavors without any adjuncts.

From the website:
We mashed this beer with a sizable bill of German barley and an assortment of special and roasted malts. It was fermented cold with our lovely monastic lager yeast, and lagered in the cellar for many weeks. Notes of homemade whole wheat raisin bread, star anise, burnt cookie bottoms, Thai basil, and some austere chocolate pudding.

Pours a dark cola color from the can and settles in the glass as blackish with mahogany brown colors on the edges, all underneath a creamy tan head. Beautiful beer.

The nose is surprisingly hoppy, with a significant pine note accompanied by stone fruit and a bit of roasty char. I am officially salivating.

The taste has that roasty char up front, but the resiny pine and stone fruit flavors, which are primarily dark cherries, really make this beer for me - and the slightly dry, medium doesn’t hurt.

I’m glad I’ve got another one of these to enjoy, because this is an excellent Baltic porter, IMHO.

On tap at Forest & Main

Hyped to finally be here! Funny story, I order this beer, but my voice is a bit hoarse from being at concerts the past 4 nights, so the bartender heard my order as “One Seed” an IPA of theirs. I wasn’t gonna complain, it was my fault lol. That one was pretty good but nothing amazing

Pours a very dark brown with 2 fingers of creamy tan head that slowly fades to a thin cap and leaves minimal lacing

Damn, the balance of roast and malt here is awesome. I’m picking up on aromas of dark bready malt, roasty coffee, pumpernickel toast, toffee, herbal hops, and light raisin

It holds that balance in taste, and really feels like an old world beer. On the front end of the sip I’m tasting pumpernickel, raisin, smoked malt, tobacco, light roast coffee, and herbal hops. The swallow brings notes of acidic coffee, pumpernickel toast, dates, toffe, roasty coffee, and doughy malt

A medium body pairs with gentle tingling carbonation, resulting in a smooth and creamy beer. Finishes slightly sticky but it works with the style

This is just an all around great beer. Nothing super complex, but very nicely balanced

16 oz can

Pours a dark brown color, clear, thick cream colored head that fades. Aroma of tobacco, black tea, licorice, light mollasses. Similar flavors in the taste, finishes on the drier side. Medium bodied. Overall not very roasty, more like a Baltic Porter verion of a Brown Porter.

Pours caramel brown with two fingers of light tan head that last a good tick and leave thick, scuzzy-looking lacing.

Cocoa, bread, raisins, anise and some distant roastiness all show in the nose.

The taste is slightly sweet up front with many of the same elements: breadiness, raisin, cocoa, a little roastiness. A hint of “burnt” bitterness and alcohol shows in the finish.

Creamy and full feeling with strong carbonation.

Very chocolatey. A robust, filling, tasty beer.