05/18/2026
Battle of the Wings 2026 for Ale N Angus Pub officially kicked off Friday at 4 PM with weather so perfect it felt like the universe personally wanted people to eat irresponsible amounts of chicken. Sunshine, cold drinks, smoke rolling off the smokers, and a crowd already forming before the fryers even had a chance to wake up.
Within no time, the line stretched all the way down Solar Street. People were standing there like they were waiting to get into the Super Bowl, except everybody smelled like ranch dressing and bad decisions.
Ale N Angus rolled into the battle armed with our fan favorites: the award-winning Smoked Gorgonzola sauce and the Slow Burn sauce, which despite the name, isn’t exactly going to melt your face off. It’s more of a “hey that’s got a little kick to it” kind of situation. Just enough heat to make you grab your beer faster.
This year we also unleashed two new flavors onto the public. First came the 1911 Honeycrisp sauce, sweet, tangy, and dangerous because people kept saying “I’ll just try one more.” Then there was the Big Ditch Hayburner IPA sauce, which basically tasted like Buffalo decided to bottle itself into a wing.
We started the weekend with 37 cases of wings and thought we were sitting pretty. Turns out the crowd had other plans. By Saturday, with ONE HOUR LEFT in the event, we were in full emergency mode trying to figure out how thousands of people were apparently training for a competitive wing-eating Olympics.
That’s when neighbor and event mastermind Nick Ford came in clutch. We had to buy another case of wings off him just to survive the final hour. Honestly, it felt less like a business transaction and more like a dramatic movie scene where somebody slides a briefcase across the table and whispers, “These are the last wings I got.”
Nick Ford absolutely crushed running the event too. Packed crowds, smooth operation, great atmosphere, and somehow only minimal public sauce-related chaos.
Then came Saturday at 5 PM when the rain showed up like an uninvited relative. Thankfully it wasn’t last year’s storm insanity with tornado vibes and 100 mph winds trying to relocate tents into another county. This year’s rain was just annoying enough to make everyone uncomfortable while simultaneously refusing to leave.
But the crowd? Didn’t care at all.
People stood in the rain eating wings like hardened Buffalo warriors. Sauce dripping everywhere. Napkins disintegrating instantly. Beer in one hand, wings in the other, absolutely zero concern for personal dignity.
By the time it was all over, Ale N Angus sold an unbelievable 38 cases of wings in just 16 hours. Thirty-eight cases. The fryers looked like they’d just completed military service. The staff was exhausted, delirious, and probably 14% wing sauce by body weight.
And no, there wasn’t any celery either. Nobody had time for vegetables during this level of chaos.