Magic Hat Jinx

Formerly brewed at Magic Hat Brewing Company
Style: Smoked
South Burlington, Vermont USA

In the bottle from Inari Wines. Pours dark amber with a beige head. Surprisingly chalky in taste. Perhaps a mild chocolate flavor, but a strange unidentifiable herb flavor is very strong at the end. Is it woodruff? They certainly don’t skimp on ingredients, but I’m not sure that is a benefit owing to the odd nature of whatever they put in this. It finishes with a bit of orange peel, but at no point did I ever get any assemblance of smoke from this beer. I give it mystery points for being so damned strange.

Bottle poured in a lager glass. Aroma of rich butterscotch and smoke. Fairly dark in color with a quickly receding head. GOOD. Tastes like scotch, smoke, and dried fruit.

Bottle. This style of beer was a first for me. Wasn’t too bad, almost like an ale. didn’t notice too much of a smoke flavor.

Muddy dark brown and licorice colored body. Nose of moderately strong smoked cheese and meat, nothing close to Schelernkerla levels, but decent nontheless. It doesn’t take much for me to like a smoked beer, and this one has some pretty nice cedar and roast as well as some mellow and creamy, toned down smoked meat. A simple beer, and it has some subtlety, which is nice. Probably one of the better Magic Hat singles I’ve had.

An interesting beer, tastes like a scotch ale to me. Caramel malt flavor with some smokiness. The smoke flavor is not overpowering. Pretty much a one sided beer though. Not a very good thirst quencher.

(Bottle (best before end of 12/07) from <A HREF=http://www.ratebeer.com/Place/maine/augusta/l target=blank>Lou’s Beverage Barn) Pours slightly hazy dark iced tea brown with perhaps some dark burnt orange hints. One finger of biege head recedes to a very thin covering. Aroma has hints of smoked bacon, licorice, caramel and sherry. Mouthfeel lightly prickly, a bit drying esp. in finish. Flavor is kind of sweet but with an ash and char quality. A little too hot. A bit smoky. Some caramel sweetness. Interesting.

(Bottle) Caramelly, tastes extremely alcoholic. Not at all bitter. Overall, weak tasting. Brown and somewhat boring. I don’t really taste the smoke. I can’t see why anyone would like this one unless they’re into blander dark beers with a dominant alcohol flavor. Sort of like a poorly executed doppelbock.

Bottle. Pour immediately releases a big tan head and I can see a very brown body emerging underneath. I’m struck by a toffee, sawdust and wet cardboard aroma that is heavy. My first sip is almost chewy and is dominated by maple flavors, caramelized sugar and heavy grains. There seems to be a bit of sweet smoke in the finish, but it is different from other smoked beers that I’ve tried in that it’s not a charcoal or peaty smoke, but rather a sweet smoke like leaves burning or something. If I wanted to reach a bit, I’d say that there is a bit of a prune flavored fruitiness underneath all of the other levels of malt and smoke. This is definitely the most interesting Magic Hat brew that I’ve tried to date, and while I won’t nominate it for any top honors or anything, I do find it enjoyable and very drinkable.