#magic hat brewery

[bowlasaur]

[trains116]

[blogdirtywaternews]

MassNightly Show: Magic Hat

MassNightly Show: Magic Hat

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/9201416/events/3294248/videos/59403748

(Skip ahead to 1:35:00)

This week we had the pleasure of interviewing a Greater Boston representative from the Magic Hat Brewery; Steve Miller. Steve joins the show as a one of a kind beer connoisseur, to enlighten the craft brew community of the depths of Magic Hat and its future events.

Steve brings  great enthusiasm over…

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[uncommonbrewsblog]

Magic Hat Pistil

When I cracked open the bottle, based on the label, I expected to be immediately tele-ported back into the "Summer of Love".  I'm not sure what that would taste like, or what beer tasted like back in 1969, but I was willing to go there.  If anybody could, it should be Magic Hat, a brewery known for some off the cuff and adventurous concoctions. 

The artwork on this bottle can't be understated, it's really cool, but it seems that beer makers don't understand that when you pop a lot of color and put a lot into the art, people expect BIG taste.  If you want to make something reserved, then make a reserved, but eye catching label.  I digress.

Expectations are irrelevant in this case, I immediately knew there was a flavor in this that I wasn't familiar with, at all.  As my bio says, I don't know what coriander tastes like, so could it be coriander?  No, it's fucking dandelions.  Yes, these things....

If anyone has ever grown up around Dandelions, I assume most Americans have, maybe they're everywhere, I have no clue, they'd know that they are weeds.  They taste like grass if you ever eat them and this beer definitely had the flavor of blandish beer with finely ground up grass inside of it. 

I guess this is where I go on a rant, I created this site to fight against the "pinkie in the air" beer reviewer sites that I find out there.  The sites that break down ridiculous ingredients like Dandelions into fine particles as if someone would use Dandelions in a beer for you to do such a thing.  I'm not going to pretend that Magic Hat wanted to use Dandelions to make a beer because they thought Dandelions were the future of beer.  They did it because it's kitchy and these days fashionable to make beer out of anything.  There's even a beer made out of the pages of old copies of Moby Dick these days.  While Dandelions as an ingredient aren't, frankly, as offensive as pages of an old book, it's up there to me. 

I think the idea I come away with these days from some craft brewers is "these idiots will drink anything".  That's simply not true, here's hoping that craft brewing doesn't continue down the "Man Vs. Food" path.  The worst crime of this wave of kitch beers is that they don't taste good.  Dogfish Head has been very successful with their Ancient Ales line, I have no idea whether those mixtures are actually based in anything historically un-Earthed, but I do know that they taste great and that's all that matters.  The story and the ingredients are icing, get the flavor right and sell it to me afterwards.  It shouldn't be the other way around.

Pistil, seemingly was reverse engineered, it seems someone had the idea to make a beer with Dandelions and regardless of it's taste, was going to release it.  That's marketing, not art.  I shouldn't come away from a beer describing it as "grassy".  I'm a nobody, but I can tell you that people love sunflower seeds.  I sit on public buses littered with their foul remains.  If you wanted to do something that was hippie and nature influenced why not use sunflowers (or the seeds)?  Basically, if you have a reason why you can't use sunflowers, just apply it to Dandelions too.

All told, it wasn't a terrible beer and I generally like what Magic Hat puts out there.  I drank the full bottle and although I wouldn't run back for another, it's great crime was just being a bit underwhelming and falling into what I see as a marketing black hole.

Check out more info on Pistil from Magic Hat including a video and origin story here:

http://www.magichat.net/elixirs/pistil/

[weekendwayfarer]

A trip to Burlington, VT isn’t complete without a stop at Magic Hat Brewery. It’s quite magical.

[poohaikus-blog]

A Magic Hat trick /

Three elder berry beer dumps /

Won't be a sweet night.

[thetravisu]

A Message From a Bottle

I've heard people say the answer is never found at the bottom of a bottle. I'll give you that one, conventional wisdom. Fortunately, a number of bottlers, such as Snapple and Magic Hat Brewery, have offered up a solution. They give bits of insight into the human condition on the bottom of their caps. As I am not presently drinking lots of Snapples, I'm going to attempt to decode the (sometimes overly cryptic) meanings from the good people at Magic Hat Brewery, one cap at a time.

"Life ... Love ... Ale" This one was tough to pull a worthwhile lesson out of. But, careful deduction led me to assume the ellipses represented some sort of vital information that had been left out. What info? This info: Life is not complete without Love. If that falls through, there's always plenty of Ale. Kinda depressing Magic Hat. Kinda depressing...

"Afternoon libations bring good vibrations." Basically, they're implying that drinking copious amounts of alcoholic beverages will bring you success with the opposite sex. HA! This is never the case. If you're anything like me (I hope that you are!!!!), a really drunk Travis is supremely talented at screwing these situations up. I make girls nervous and a little worried. And no, not the good kind of nervous and a little worried (titillated). ---P.S. All bets are off if you're day drinking with a lovely, champion of a lady that doesn't throw up very often. ;) <--- (creepy!)

"No Winners For Sinners." Remember this catchy little jingle the next time you're "just borrowing" your best friend's favorite book. Return it promptly, or perish and enjoy an eternity of pain and anguish (Hell).

"When In A Trance, Don't Take Off Your Pants." This is a good one. Notice the use of capitalization in this phrase. Even the words "in" and "a" are included to add hyperbole. That's because it is meant to be taken very literally. Don't do it. You're welcome!

"tiptoe through the tulips." This one threw me for a loop. It got me wondering if I was wasting my time writing this blog. I was fucking pissed frustrated. Genuinely distressed, I did some cursory research on the song. And what did I find? It's a love song ... and that's it. But, just when it was looking like I had hit another dead end, Eureka moment! Bada-Boom, baby! Clearly, they must be referencing the fact that Tiny Tim- a loner and a high school dropout- covered this song and became hugely successful. So if you ever hit one of life's little roadblocks, drop out of school and learn how to play the ukulele ... I think.

Thanks for reading. Live fearless and read books.