Wild Onion Paddy Pale Ale

Tonight is one of those 4-alarm “I need a beer” kinda evenings. Work was pretty busy. Stayed later at work than expected. At home I had a giant to-do list waiting for me. People will be at the house tomorrow for an Ecolissa photo-shoot. With my wife’s right arm still somewhat useless due to the broken elbow, I’m the guy when it comes to much of the house cleaning. After 2 hours of house cleaning, I had to sit down and write a brief curriculum for a church class I am teaching tomorrow night. Finally, I had to package up the CANFEST contest stuff to mail out to our lucky winner. FWEEW! What a long evening. I will say that a delicious dinner and dessert courtesy of my lovely wife did provide momentary breaks for deliciousness.

I picked up this can of Paddy Pale Ale on a recent trip to the liquor store. Up to that point I had never heard of the Wild Onion Brewery, which is out of Chicago.

The beer rings-up at 5.6% ABV. It’s got decent head and a burnt orange color. The aroma is full-on hoppy – mostly piney.

The flavors are pretty typical of a pale ale. That said, the beer isn’t boring by any means. Pine and floral flavors are dominant, however a very subtle sweetness in the background gives the beer a really nice mix of sweet and bitter. I get this neat ping-ponging of flavor going in my mouth. Sweet serves to bitter…The Bitter with a strong cross-court forehand return…Sweet dives, makes a lofting return….and bitter slams the ball away for the point & match. And the crowd roars *insert fake crowd noises made with hands cupped over my mouth*.

I like the beer. I might buy it again, especially if in the mood for mouth-pong.

-Lost