Magic Hat

The Magic Hat Brewing Company is located in South Burlington, Vermont. They make beer. Good beer. Like most (all?) New England microbreweries, they focus on heavy amber ales, the kind that go down well with a bowl of clam chowder on a cold, rainy day. They have one stout, but I haven't tried it. I'm fond of their Blind Faith ale, and I've enjoyed their Hocus Pocus ale. Their #9 is not so good: It's flavored with peaches or something ill-advised like that (iamscoops below says apricots, and he's right). There are several other varieties, mostly seasonal, but I'm hooked on Blind Faith so I haven't tried them.

They put annoying, moronic little rhymes under their bottle caps. Their website (http://www.magichat.net) is spattered with moronic little rhymes, too. They have attractive artwork on their packaging.

For a long time, Magic Hat was available only in Vermont, Western Mass, and for some bizarre reason Baltimore; but now it's easy to find in the civilized part of the country.

The coolest thing about Magic Hat beer (besides the fact that it is great beer) is that if you drink enough of it and if you are lucky enough, you will eventually find a cap that has a phone number printed on it and a message saying that you are a winner. When you call the phone number on the cap, they tell you to flatten the cap with a hammer (this is fun) and send it to them along with your address and they will send you a free shirt. Very cool.

The least cool thing about Magic Hat beer (besides the fact that it is not free) is that if you find one of the winning caps, flatten it out with a hammer, and send it in with an index card with your address on it, they don't send you anything in return! The nice voice on the machine that answered the number printed under the cap told me that I would get my free shirt by mail within 8 weeks. Well, it has been two years and no shirt!

Their beer is good enough, however, that I continue to drink it even though I have been bamboozled.

Their stout is called Humble Patience, by the way.

I was in TJ Max one fine day with my mother, whom I rarely shop with based on childhood nightmare shopping excursions. Her car was broken and we work about 10 minutes away from eachother as of recently, so she just hopped a ride with me for the day. She wanted to get some sort of clothing and I told her I would look at the household section. They have really cheap yet cool things there that I could occupy a few minutes with.

She was taking an unusually long time, and I soon got bored with the household section and moved on to the mens department. I stumbled upon the hat corner and decided it was about time for a new hat. I looked them all over, and wasn't overly impressed with what I saw. Then I happened upon my hat. It was a cross between a cowboy hat, a fisherman's hat and something else I couldn't quit put my finger on. I tried it on and it felt right, not that I necessarily thought it looked good, but that was really beside the point.

Hats are an odd thing. If you wear it enough, it doesn't really matter what it looks like. As long as people get used to you with it on, it's accepted.

So I bought the hat, wondering if it would be one of those things you buy only to wear once and have it thrown by the wayside, or lost before you could really get any use out of it.

The first person who saw me with it was my roommate, Scott. All he could do was tell me it looked like a girl's hat (he's got some issues with masculinity, and would do anything in his power to not even get close to crossing that line). At first I was offended... or embarrassed or something, but fuck that. Even if it was a girl's hat, which it wasn't, I liked it, and I don't give a fuck what that says.

1.) I'm not gay.
2.) I liked the hat.

Synopsis: Fuck everyone, I am sporting the hell out of this hat!

It's funny, cause once I wore it with pride, everyone seemed to love it. They want to wear it if I'm not (expecially the girls. All girls that think they are cute secretly want to wear cowboy hats for some reason), and they all looked good in it, too! It's really amazing. I think I found the magic hat, like frosty the snowman or something. I was at the bar this evening, which I rarely, if ever go to, and people just wanted to wear it left and right. People I didn't know were saying how much they loved it. I wonder if they like the hat, or just my ability to proudly wear something so non-mainstream and wanted to do the same? But in that, they would remove the element of individuality, and thus cancel their actions out.
Curious!

MY UNINVITED ADVICE: If you want to wear a hat, wear the fucking hat! Make sure when you buy it that you at least wear it for a week straight so that all of you're friends see you with it on and get used to it. Oh, and... wear it proud!

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The hat soon lost it's shape. I now look like I should be runnin moonshine in the deep south with pappy when I wear it. Bonnaroo took it's toll. I still love it, though.