Magic Hat Hicu

Here is, yet another, brewing experiment from our friends at the Magic Hat Brewery. There was only one thing they could name this one because it is concocted with hibiscus and cucumber in the ingredients. They named it Hicu, I guess Haiku was  taken?

The pour produces a caramel, red, brown ale with very little carbonation. I poured it aggressively.  The first sip is dominated by the taste of cucumber. The second sip is just more cucumber and a sour ale hint.


As the beer warms I can begin to smell a brown ale. At this point, I detect the taste of ice tea, but I can't get over the the cucumber taste. If there was a bit of oil involved, I would describe the mouthfeel as salad dressing.

The label invites us to compose a Haiku about Hicu, here's mine. 


Lovely brown ale
tastes like curcurbits
I'll not have another.

Grade: 2 of 5 possible pints.

Magic Hat Heart of Darkness Stout

While I haven't read Mr. Conrad's book this beer certainly inspires me to catch up on my reading. Heart of Darkness pours a dark, creamy brown and smells, much like it looks, of coffee. On further review, I will amend my description of the appearance, this beer pours as dark as night. The first sip  tastes of dark, bitter chocolate with a hint of banana, (This is reminding of something else I recently reviewed.)

This stout is no heavier in volume than a lighter ale but  easily gives the impression of heaviness. Delicious, perfectly carbonated with a subtle but persistent bitterness.Why the many chocolate lovers I know don't like stout I'll never understand? The beer could be described as a liquid chocolate cake, yum!

Grade: A great, great beer and another big "thank you" to Magic Hat. 4.75 of 5 possible pints.

Magic Hat Howl, Black Lager

So I've been writing about Magic Hat beers for nearly two years and still haven't written about #9, Vinyl, Wacko or their winter seasonal offering, Howl, Black Lager. Lemme get with the program!

With Howl and Ravell, Magic Hat is really leaning in the direction of dark beers and this is great too. Howl shares many of the flavor characteristics of Ravell but is a bit heavier on the tongue. My first impression of Howl leads me to believe that I'm drinking a Stout, this is no simple Black Lager.

The beer pours with plenty of foamy carbonated goodness. The first sip is a heavy coffee and dark chocolate flavor with just a bit of sweetness. Howl stays thick and malty through out and remains tart and stout as well. I'm tellin' ya, this one is a Stout! By comparison, Ravell has a  lighter mouth-feel and is more similar to other black lagers I have had.

Howl's not a beer that I'd hunt for in a six-pack but I'll  continue enjoying them when  Winterfest 12 Pack season returns. I'll give Howl a 3 out of 5 pints, while it was a great representative of it's style, perhaps I just drank it out of season? (Or, perhaps I should have enjoyed it with some chocolate chip cookies?)

Magic Hat, Encore IPA

I have been trying to write about this beer all year. It is very difficult for me to come to terms with a beer that mostly tastes like citrus juice. IPA is not one of my favorite styles but I  still enjoy it occasionally.

Magic Hat Encore pours with a good to great foamy head. I even over flowed the glass, and I haven't done that in ages. (I borrowed the photo from the entree-net, thus the lack of head in the photo.) The smell is yeast and citrus. The first sip is, what I associate with IPAs, grapefruit. The fruity and hoppy flavors dominate until the last sip. Encore's as good an IPA as I require and I give it a 4.5 of 5 possible pints and a Hats Off to Magic Hat.

Magic Hat, Ravell

I try to keep a Magic Hat mixed 12-pack in the house at all times. At the moment I still have the remains of a few of the Winterland 12-packs which each include 3 bottles of Ravell. I didn't know what to expect when I poured this brew into the pint glass. Ravell is very dark which indicated that I'd be reviewing another Porter.

I managed to pour some of the ale straight into the glass and it produced an average beige head. This disappeared quickly but Porters aren't highly carbonated beers. I anticiaped lots of chocolaty flavor but I got a mouth full of coffee instead. But, I've learned that, Ravell is a vanilla porter not a coffee porter. In Ravell the vanilla translates into coffee flavors for me. As the drink warms the chocolaty flavors appear.

Ravell is a well crafted, well balanced porter. The roasted malt dominates the flavor to the end but a skilled application of hops keeps the drink chewy without becoming too sweet. I give Ravell a 3.95 out of 5 pints.

Here's a photo of a guitar painted as a Magic Hat promotional item. I love these old el cheapo guitars and I love the random images I find when searchin' the entree'-net.

Magic Hat Monday

Today I'll be giving a review of Magic Hat, Odd Notion Summer 2010. Each season the Magic Hat brewery makes a new style of their Odd Notion label. The summer beers tend to be wheat beers and the cool season beers tend toward dark ales.

Odd Notion Summer 2010 pours with very little head retention. The fragrance of the beer is like a white wine, like muscadine. The body of the beer is very clear and unlike many wheat beers which are cloudy. The initial sip tastes of wheat and carbonation. The flavor is not hoppy or bitter; I wonder if this is some hybrid of barley and wheat malts? The pallet remains slightly sour and light to the end. I may finally be a wheat beer fan after twenty years of beer drinking.

For the record, I'm the one who ranked Magic Hat #9 and Terrapin Hop Karma in the top five beers in North America.


Wow, I really need to polish that table.