The Rowdy Growler

The Magic Hat Brewery Tour

This weekend on our way back from Montreal, we took a detour to the Magic Hat brewery.

The brewery resides in South Burlington, Vermont, tucked away between two strip malls. But as soon as you pull up to the building, you know immediately that this is no ordinary brewery. A large “Magic Tube” stands guard, with a pressure gauge measuring what I can only guess is what mood the brewers are currently in (options include: mystified, full-throttle, and “wheelie”). It measured “ecstatic” when we arrived.

Upon entering the brewery, we were greeted with a gift shop filled with Magic Hat branded paraphernalia, including Magic Hat condoms. The shirts were actually well designed, and corresponded to many of their signature brews. We later learned that all the artwork was done in-house, and that they were very proud of their designers. I decided to purchase a green tee with a Ferris wheel on it, with the words “Hefeweizen!” (an homage to their Circus Boy brew).

After sampling a few of the beers on tap (Circus Boy, Wacko Summer Ale, First Chair Ale, the “Odd Notion” Wild Ginger Brew, and their famous #9), it was time for the only tour of the day to start. It was lead by a peppy 21-year old who had just joined the company 3 weeks ago. While this meant the tour was mostly read from an 8 ½ by 11, she definitely had spunk. We started off the tour by watching a video of the founder talking briefly about how the craft beer industry had declined and then was kickstarted again. Unlike Beer Wars, the owner named Anchor Steam as the catalyst of the current revitalization of craft breweries, not Sam Adams as mentioned in the movie.

The owners themselves were bonafied hippies to the core. After leaving the green cleaning company Seventh Generation, two guys were sitting around in a bar one day (unemployed) and decided to give their dream a whirl. [note: Sound familiar??]. This was 1994. Sixteen years later, they are going strong, and in combination with Pyramid Breweries (their sister company), they constitute the third largest craft brewery in the country.

All in all, definitely worth the drive, if not for the hodge-podge tour, then for the free samples of ALL their beer :)