Free Hat

A riddle: If Magic Hat does not make good beer, and I've never purchased Magic Hat it in my life, why does it appear in my fridge?

The answer is that Magic Hat has cornered a very niche market - it is the beer that people who don't know a lot about beer bring as a gift for people who do. The labels are bright and eye catching, the names are goofy, and because you never see it advertised it avoids being placed in the same class as Budweiser, Miller and Coors.

Magic Hat is probably best known for its English Ale, #9, an apricot infused beer generally preferred by... cider drinkers, I guess? Tonight though I had their Spring seasonal offering called Vinyl. Vinyl is a watery lager with notes of - actually, I think watery lager about sums it up.

I do tip my regular hat to Magic Hat for their unique presentation. I originally thought to describe Magic Hat as the Ben & Jerry's of breweries, but that title belongs to the more adventurous and vastly superior Dogfish Head. A more apt comparison might be that Magic Hat is to beer what Urban Outfitters is clothes, in that they both repurpose alternative/hipster titles and slap them on lackluster products for hot chicks who don't know any better. Vinyl Lager is the beer equivalent of seeing Mischa Barton in a vintage Bruce Springteen t-shirt (or as Mischa Barton would say, Bwoose Sprwingsteen).