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Magic hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont
- freefal 6y ago#9 is one of my favorite beers so I was bummed to see the title of this HN post. Reading the article it sounds like production is just being moved to Rochester though.
- bluntfang 6y ago>production is just being moved to Rochester though. I don't think this really captures how important small business is to Vermont. This is likely culling a lot of jobs across the whole supply chain that locals rely on to survive.
- fastball 6y agoI think GC was more referring to the "fall" in the article's title. This might be bad for Vermont, but it's hardly the "fall" of Magic Hat.
- beezle 6y agoThere are more than enough brewers and distillers in VT that it won't be that big a deal. Regionally at least, Alchemist, Lawsons and Switchback are bigger names now. Hemp has also become a thing.
- AndrewLiptak 6y agoFortunately, the space is being taken up by another brewery, Zero Gravity (which produces really great beer), and I believe that they're picking up some of their employees. I honestly don't think it's detrimental to the industry here: there are a TON of smaller breweries that are all doing really well.
- Spooky23 6y agoIt's being rolled up into Genny. Vermont doesn't have much going for it economically. Winters are hit or miss for skiing, dairy is dying, etc. Small scale agriculture is the business there. Once you leave Burlington and the immediate vicinity, things look alot less prosperous. Moving a small operation like this is a slow cut that impacts local farms, etc.
- AndrewLiptak 6y agoProduction is moving, but what struck me (and what made me think HN readers would be interested in it) was that the business seems to have fallen victim to a classic problem in business: being sold to people who don't understand the culture / product, and can't effectively sell it or continue it in a meaningful way. From the sounds of things, they're not selling all that well because of that.
- jdhn 6y agoWow, this is such a throwback. Along with Hoegaarden (pre-Inbev acquisition) and Harpoon's UFO White, #9 was one of my first forays into craft beer. That being said, it's been years since I've seen any Magic Hat on a shelf. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough? Either way, here's hoping that Magic Hat makes a resurgence!
- save_ferris 6y agoI agree with the previous poster, I didn’t discover magic hat until about 5 years ago and it just didn’t stand out at all among the local craft scene. But I’m all for more good breweries.
- corporateslave5 6y agoThere’s a trick to #9. It is 10x better freshly brewed! I went to the magic hat brewery and had #9 there. The taste was so much better, you could tell it was due to the freshness. It ruined the beer for me though, because now I know what I’m buying off the shelf is a bit old.
- seibelj 6y agoMost beers are better at the brewery IMO, and most beers are better on draft. One beer I especially like in a can is Boddingtons because of the CO2 capsule that makes its pour quite similar to a draft beer. I think a few other beers have the same innovation. I believe I’m the only person at my local package store who buys it, as they order very little and I always seem to buy the last couple 4-packs.
- corporateslave5 6y agoRight, but I think because it’s an apricot beer, the freshness has more of an impact on taste than other beers. Just speculating
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 6y agoFruit ages pretty well in general, but I'd strongly suspect that Magic Hat had DO levels back then that would horrify the industry today.
- nkozyra 6y agoI think while Magic Hat holds a place in the craft beer renaissance story, much of the regional beer from that era was unremarkable. The idea that it was better than the macro beers stemmed largely from the experimentation and derivation from American adjunct lagers. As the smaller, more rabid craft beer industry grew from the late 90s, bigger regional brewers like MH never really evolved. Some of that might have been due to the acquisitions, but survival in this extremely saturated space means making a name for yourself via taste and/or quality and Magic Hat didn't measure up. Very few people I know would reach for a MH over a cheapo adjunct lager.
- cactus2093 6y agoThere's certainly something to the increased competition in the craft brewing space and they seem not to have kept up, but I don't really follow your comparisons. By American adjunct lagers, I assume you mean budweiser, coors, etc? Maybe Magic Hat also made a lager but I was most familiar with their #9 which was a floral, light IPA that was definitely a big step above a cheapo lager. And the article is saying that if anything they were too out-there and experimental, which is basically the opposite problem as being undifferentiated from all the other cheapo lagers.
- dimitrios1 6y agoMagic Hat #9 was delicious. I miss it. I always assumed it was freshness that was a key taste differentiator as well. I figured a case of Budweiser or Miller was more likely to have been on the shelf for many months to possibly years as it worked its way through the supply chain and existing retail inventory. That's why the big 3 did a big "Born On Date" advertising campaign because at one point they were getting hammered by that.
- ejvincent 6y agoStagnation of 90s era breweries that started out strong is something I've seen play out on the west coast as well: Bridgeport (Portland), Hales Ales + Pyramid (Seattle), Redhook (Woodinville).
- pessimizer 6y ago
- tomc1985 6y agoThere are so many good east coast brews that we rarely, if ever, see on the west coast. I pick up Magic Hat whenever I see it, and they've always been good -- didn't know they were such a revolutionary force, and that the (very good) beer that I buy from them was even better back in the day.
- polygotdomain 6y agoAs a craft beer lover, I'm really at odds with what to think about where the scene is today. There are so many breweries out there that are brewing some really great beer and coming up with some interesting styles. In many places there's a recapturing of what I'd call "beer as place" with beirgartens, brew-pubs, and breweries themselves having a more open and inviting experience to hang out and drink beer. It's tasty, fun, and enjoyable. But there are downsides to all of this as well. The market is SUPER trendy, and breweries have the choice of either jumping on the bandwagon of the style-du-jour or being left by the wayside. Because there are so many breweries and they are so young, the overall quality is just okay with maybe one beer being notable and the rest being slightly sub par. Then you have this issue of investment firms and bigger conglomerates buying up successful microbrews and sucking the life out of them. I love beer, and in many ways you could say that the American beer scene has never been better. But that doesn't mean that there aren't dark sides to all of that. I drank plenty of Magic Hat over the years, and it's a shame that there are certain names out there (Goose Island is one that comes to mind) that used to stand for a solid craft brewing operation that are now just marketing veneers on top of investment bankers and big corporations.
- grasshopperpurp 6y agoI used to be really into discovering beers, but I usually just drink Founders All Day IPA these days, with a German Pilsner as a backup. There are only a couple months out of the year here in Florida where I'd want something that over 5%, though.
- andygcook 6y agoAs I venture more into my 30's, I almost exclusively drink session beers when I want something hoppy. Drinking even one 8%+ ABV DIPA leaves me pretty much useless the next day. Founders All Day IPA is a solid go to. Other session IPAs/APAs I enjoy are Notch Left of the Dial, Lagunita's DayTime, Harpoon Rec League, and Zero Gravity Little Wolf APA.
- grasshopperpurp 6y ago
- ErikAugust 6y agoVermont today has much better beer than Magic Hat (even at its height). They tried a lot of different stuff, and most of it just wasn't very enjoyable. What Magic Hat did have was beautiful marketing and wider distribution. It has to be partially by choice, but The Alchemist and Lawson's make some of the best beer I have ever had, but they are both impossible to find outside of New England and a few parts of New York. I recently moved back to Vermont, and one of the first things I did was purchase Heady Topper. Even less than five miles from the brewery, it was hard to find!
- tarentel 6y agoLawson's started brewing at Two Roads in CT and got a distributor in CT and it's been a lot easier to find at least here in NJ within the past year. I also recently got Heady and Focal down here but I am not sure where the distributor got it from or if it was a one off thing. You probably already know about them but Hill Farmstead is my favorite in VT. I used to go there a few times a year when I lived closer by.
- beezle 6y agoSip of Sunshine has always been brewed at TwoRoads. Super Session is also brewed there. The rest of the line up is local at the Waitsfield or Warren facility. Double Sip came before Sip as well. Alchemist AFAIK only has local distribution within 25 miles of the brewery in Stowe by their own trucks/vans. (adding) If you find yourself in the central VT area, the Lawson's tap room is really nice facility, definitely check it out.
- gbarnes 6y agoNah, Alchemist has been distributing much further for about a year now. Easy to get in NY and MA now. Like, on the shelf at Wegmans easy.
- albedoa 6y agoThis was marketed as an exclusive quarantine initiative, with distribution help from Night Shift. If it's not temporary, I'm happy to be wrong.
- beezle 6y agoNever really got into most of the Magic Hat offerings. Single chair was ok. I was surprised they never really did much with the tap room, instead keeping it to just to small samples and merchandise rather than going full tap room like everyone else
- coldpie 6y ago> I was surprised they never really did much with the tap room, instead keeping it to just to small samples and merchandise rather than going full tap room like everyone else I guess I'm not sure what you mean here. I was at their taproom in Burlington a year or two ago, and you could get full pints of everything they had on tap. I think when I was there, they even had a keg of something they didn't bother to bottle. There's also a really well done tour through the brewing facility, which I thought was pretty cool.
- beezle 6y agoYou are probably right, though I know I never had a full pint and don't recall seeing others with them when I was there.
- ilamont 6y agoA lot of really good entrepreneurial food companies have come out of Vermont, Ben & Jerry's being the most famous. Like MH, it was acquired by a multinational company (Unilever) although it still strives to retain its independence and Vermont character. We live in an adjoining state, and get cheese, chocolate, beer, and syrup from Vermont producers. There's even roasted coffee beans from a producer up there that my wife likes. Most aren't known outside of the northeast. The thing is, in order to survive almost all of these Vermont food ventures have to "export" to other states. The local market isn't big enough. This encourages them to be more experimental, which fits with the state's independent streak but is also necessary to attract die-hard fans elsewhere. To give one pre-pandemic example, if the local cheesemakers attempted to sell product that was just like what you can find in the supermarket there's no way consumers in other states would notice it, much less the restauranteurs in New York and Boston. [Edited Unilever reference]
- chrisseaton 6y agoI think an issue the American craft beer scene has is quantity over quality. Some American beer places I go into have like forty different beers on tap, and are really proud of it. I find it hard to believe that forty beers are being kept fresh and live and maintained properly. Are they replacing them every few days or are the less popular ones in a range that wide sitting there for weeks? I feel like they're ending up quietly taking lower-quality shortcuts like using kegs rather than casks. I don't know why they don't focus on fewer, higher quality beers, rather than a ridiculously wide range.
- dvtrn 6y agoI find it hard to believe that forty beers are being kept fresh and live and maintained properly Asked honesty and earnestly, why?
- chrisseaton 6y agoFresh beer ideally lasts about five days. Are these places getting through a whole cask of all their forty beers every five days? Doesn't seem likely to me. I'm guessing that they're using shortcuts like putting it into kegs rather than casks, Pasteurising rather than keeping it fresh, and using carbonation instead of pumping it naturally, in order to support their huuuuuuge ranges. If they focused on a smaller number they woudln't have to do this and they could have higher quality instead.
- dvtrn 6y agoThere are several styles of beer that can be stored such that they continue fermenting in storage and become a final, drinkable product by the time it gets connected to a tap-so this is HEAVILY dependent on what kind of beer you’re making, it’s not really applicable as a universal statement for the storage of several kinds beer. IPAs for example can last quite a long time if properly store (up to four weeks I believe?). Beers brewed in casks obviously have a different fermentation cycle than something brewed macro systems but storage is less of a problem than you may think for brewpubs and gastropubs, generally speaking. Wits can last for a while if properly stored and rotated (physically as in turning the keg on end), for example. But even then, casks aren’t ideal for long term storage in many cases, and not all beers are suited for storage in casks as opposed to say: steel kegs. (Spent quite a long time in the service industry and worked two large breweries in Texas)
- iloveyouocean 6y agoThe post title should be 'Magic Hat leaves behind a transformed craft beer industry in Vermont'. Magic Hat is the name of a company.
- zoomablemind 6y agoCraft beer craze seems to overpower any ability to discern flavor subltieties across so many offerings. Won't balme consumers to shop by the labels, one craftier looking than other. Even established brands like the MH can drown in the colorful sea of the labels. So gone the days, when I readily paid for overweight luggage just to bring home a case of UFO from Boston. These days, I'm very much utilitarian about beer, as long as on touch it's colder than room and not much more than 2bucks a bottle. In most cases (for me), the buzz and burp are just unwanted side-effects, so cool water sans ice serves the function ... free of charge. I pick up the missed carbs from the dessert :)
- adamc 6y agoI don't even drink, but this is a great story.