Wild Beer Co: Pogo (England: American Pale Ale: 4.1% ABV)
Visual: Pale yellow to grain. Large carbonation. Clear body. Massive white bubbled mound head.
Nose: Passion fruit. Guava. Very fresh. Orange juice. Crisp hops. Pineapple. Light lemon sorbet.
Body: Orange juice. Fluffy hop feel. Dry passion fruit. Guava juice. Low bitterness backing. Mandarin orange.
Finish: Mild hop character. Low bitterness. Light squeezed orange. Slight sour cloying character.
Conclusion: I’m just listing the special ingredients here, aren’t I? Basically there is lots of fruit in it, resulting in fruit flavours, delivered in a fruit juice kind of fashion, along with a light hop character. The main malt beer body itself seems to keep itself to a just slightly dry and refreshing character – I’m getting nearly nothing of the malt flavours in this. The malt seems to just give some mouthfeel then gets out of the way to let the special ingredients and hops do the work instead.
The special ingredients and hops do work well together, giving fresh and real feeling fruitiness. There is, at the end, an odd interaction between the hops and the fruit that gives a slight bitter sour character to it on the way out. A cloying twist that makes it seem like a much more savoury end point.
So, a mix of bright fruit and slight cloying hops – pretty satisfying, pretty easy drinking, a nicely dry body against the fresh fruit. Not as stand out bright fruitiness as some, but still pretty evident.
Pretty solid, in the end it is pretty much what the ingredients describe, and delivered competently. Nicely enjoyable, but not surprising – a solid, just above session abv beer, that hits very much in the middle flavor wise for a session beer.
Background: Yeah, I pretty much grab as many of the Wild Beer Co beers as I can get my hands on. This one grabbed, unusually enough, from Independent Spirit. It is a pale ale made with Orange, Guava, Passion fruit, Wheat and lactose. So a fairly non standard set. Drunk while listening to Godspeed You!Black Emperor again. This time “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven” – it is good background drinking music.