Non-Pacific

It's chapter three of Random Finnish Beers in Lidl. I'm glad they're spacing these out so I get a new post from each one. Today Pyynikin has a Pacific Pale Ale for us, a 5.5%-er.

For a start, it doesn't look very pale, being the amber colour of old-school American pale ales, with their heavy charge of crystal malt. They did that, presumably, because they based their beers on English bitter, and this has a gentle lemon-tea aroma which put me in a pub beer garden more than on a Polynesian beach. The crystal comes roaring out in the flavour: a huge, sweet, caramel and toffee effect in the foretaste. We've moved indoors from the beer garden and switched from a light and hoppy bitter to a dark and comforting one. The tannins are still there but they aren't strong enough to balance the heavy sugar, and there's also a little of the soap and metal that are the bane of English-hopped beers, even though this probably isn't one.

Pyynikin has really missed the mark on "Pacific" here. There's not an iota of tropicality about this, and nothing American either. Maybe it's a Finnish take on New Zealand's ubiquitous Canterbury Draught, because that's about the only way it makes sense. As beer in its own right it's inoffensive, and might even be enjoyable as a dark-evening sipper. I couldn't deal with the surprise, however, and resented it for the rest of the glassful. Adjust your expectations accordingly.