Our second beer from Short’s, although from the same road trip as the last one, which was Huma-Lupa-Licious. Everything can’t always
be fancy and original and stuff. As well, we’re not quite sure what the relation between the contemplative devil and pandemonium is, well, unless that devil is contemplating the best way to create pandemonium. Oh, and fair warning: I’m hitting myself with a cheesy prose warning for the following write-up.Pandemonium pours a reddish copper with a minimal head. The nose is fruity and bready with no discernable hop aroma. Starting with light sweetness and biscuit malt flavor, Pandemonium gets out of control in the middle with low levels of bitterness and a toasted biscuit malt flavor. All hell breaks loose in the finish—the sweetness and biscuit from the front are back and the bitterness from the middle keeps on growing, lingering lightly on the palate with a darker roasted biscuit flavor. It’s pretty much a little something like what brimstone would taste like. Pandemonium has a medium body with medium carbonation that doesn’t have much bite.
There is also some dryness in the mouthfeel, probably a combination of the biscuit and the hops—you know, from some sort of Charlie Daniels “The Devil Went Down to Georgia-esque” deal with the devil. And now I’m just annoying myself. We’ll close by noting that Pandemonium is much more a British than an American version of a pale ale. Which is really another way of saying that hell is England, and not other people like Sartre tried to convince us.From the Short’s website: “Our classic American pale ale lends its copper color to the rich specialty grains. This craft ale is balanced with four kettle hop additions to a near IPA quality. It is one of the few beers we finish through whole leaf hops lending a nice fresh earthy aroma and flavor.”
ABV: 5.4%
IBU: 49
(5/24/2010)
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