The critical (yet objective) “Beers to You” tasting panel took a shot at two seasonal brews from the Magician’s at Magic Hat Brewing Company of Vermont. This year the “The Great Ballantine” must have been the guy on stage, because they really failed to pull a rabbit out of the hat for “Summer 09″.

 The first beer is called “Wacko” which is billed as a very light summer ale, is dosed with a bit of raw beet sugar to lighten the taste. No one on the BTY taste panel could come up with anything good to say about Wacko. The beer pours with a slightly beet-red color with the head fading quickly. The beer has virtually no aroma and a seemingly high carbonation level.  The beer is hopped with the Columbus variety, but at a very low rate, making the hop variety unimportant. The most interesting thing about the beer is the very high levels of DMS (dimethyl sulfide) in the finish. This usually “taboo” beer characteristic tastes like cooked corn and is only desirable in a few beer styles in very small amounts. This beer’s concentrations were so high the beer could have been used to train tasters for DMS detection. I would rather drink Coor’s light than Wacko; and that is saying a lot!

The second Magic Hat seasonal is named “A Belgian Blonde”. They describe it as a summer “Odd Notion” and not a seasonal beer and I can’t explain why. The beer is pretty good and at just under 6%abv, it’s a moderately strong beer with a definite Belgian character all the way through. The beer tends toward the “malty side” but has been dry-hopped for some “snap”. The beer is well balanced but it doesn’t strike me as a summer “porch sipper” because it’s a bit strong, though not thick; in fact it finishes dry and somewhat light.  I would much rather see this beer on tap as opposed to Wacko, which will be going on tap at a few local venues pretty soon.

The BTY panel could not proclaim either of these beers as “Magic” and Wacko was downright “Not pleasant to drink”. Magic Hat’s  “A Belgian Blonde” was Just Okay, but I know they can do better! I hope they find some new potions for their “odd notions” before next year’s seasonals are released!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.