Gage Road Atomic American Pale Ale - some days are made for beer

Rise, shower, drive, grunt, work, lunch, swim, sleep, beer. That's the shortened version of my day ending with a bottle of Gage Road's American Pale Ale. Thankfully for my day and the brew, there's a little more to it than just that..





It started at 4:30 this morning when magically my brain attempted to engage gears 15 minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off. The sound of my mental cogs grinding to a halt followed me into the darkened shower where I contemplated the meaning of existence, got dressed in the dark, grunted an order for a takeaway cappuccino into the nearest Macca's drive through and drove off to work. 

Guess what I'm not crash hot at? Early mornings.

Six hours later on the radio after a few happy winners who scored tickets to the latest Johhny English flick, it was back in the car to battle Gold coast traffic to pick up the wife and kids and off to the new shopping centre near my dogs to check out a new fish and chip shop... ...which wasn't there. 

So off to Hungry Jack's to watch and wait while the brand new store found their groove (and my medium coke), before a stroll through the new center and wincing the entire way while hearing a shop Spruiker attempt to eat the microphone with every announcement. (Tips for new players? About a hand span of distance between your teeth and the microphone is fine..)

From there it was a big afternoon at the local pool where my little bloke impressed us with the swim strokes he learnt at school during the week and my daughter laughed and kicked water around. 
Home again, into the shower and if I just put my head down for maybe half an hou- Whoops. Suddenly it's dinner. 
And without a single home brew on hand to tuck into (not until Baz gets to marvel at my Photoshop work), I figured it was time for a brew. Off to BWS where there was a lot of the usuals (ie plenty that I've checked out and reviewed so far) and a few choices that didn't really light my world on fire.. (big bottles of Iron Jack). 
Thankfully down on the bottom shelf, an effort from Gage Road caught my attention. Let's get Atomic with out bbq chicken salad. 


Initial thoughts: Quite a few bubbles and a light head that ran off pretty quick. Color is a nice and slightly hazy light copper. It's looking pretty tasty in my new stylish glass.

What am I smelling here: A nice Hoppy aroma. It's not overpowering but it's definitely what stands out. The label says it's a combination of four American hops so at best guess a combination Cascade, Centennial and a couple of others (still learning the difference here). I'm not smelling any massive fruit so possible not Citra and Amarillo. There's not strong particular notes straight out of the fridge but a combo hops smell going on. 

What am tasting: Caramel malt with a nice level of bitterness, toffee and a little bit of sweetness. A nice but not super strong hop finish. Some other reviewers are picking up fruit and grass. Either I've got one that hasn't or in my tired state I've completely overlooked them. 

Overall: It is very well balanced and easy to drink. You could quite easily plough through a few in a session without intensely strong flavors dragging you down. Definitely worth a repeat performance to see if I've managed to cop a non fruity one (although I read one review who was convinced they've changed the recipe in the last couple of years.) 

3.75 out of 5 possible Fallouts