United Nations of Beer

Magic Hat Wonder Beer

by Ashley Cotter-Cairns
(UNOB HQ)

Magic Hat Wonder Beer
Magic Hat Brewing, VT, USA

Now I'm probably the biggest mug around. I've bought more snake oil remedies, more "must have" gadgets and more stupidly expensive cars in my time than you could shake a dipstick at.

But even I have my limits. You can call me a plonker all you like, but only a REAL plonker would believe that Wonder Beer is a beet-flavoured alcoholic beverage.

It's certainly the appropriate colour, being a kind of bloody bruise-red in hue. When you hold it up to the light and peer at it suspiciously, it does a passable beet blush with aplomb.

When you actually taste it, whether you like Wonder Beer or not, you will perhaps, like I did, wonder what the beet thing is all about.

I went back to talk to the staff and check that I'd heard them correctly.

"This has beets in it?"

"Yes. Fresh beets and Belgian beet sugar cane."

Beets are one of those foods that tend to divide opinion as effectively as a bunch of bricks, barbed wire and machine gun nests once divided Berlin.

Some people think they are a hideous monstrosity, the vegetable equivalent of Satan's bowel movements.

Others, like myself, think beets taste earthy, wholesome, dark and mysterious.

Unfortunately, while I don't necessarily dislike Magic Hat Wonder Beer, I do think it's a silly gimmick that ultimately fails to impress.

You'd be hard-pressed to find anything beety about it and might achieve a similar effect by mixing a weak-tasting pale ale with food colouring.