It’s shocking to hear about an old friend’s supposed death on Reddit. A couple months ago, coffee in hand, I found myself reading about the purported end of Magic Hat’s flagship beer, the apricot-scented pale ale #9.
According to the post, the brand’s parent company, FIFCO USA, was ceasing production of the trailblazer born in Burlington, Vt., in the mid-1990s. The brand and its psychedelic aesthetics helped introduce generations of New England beer drinkers to flavorful beer.
“This was my go-to in my 20s!” Lee Lord, the head brewer at Narragansett Beer, told me via Instagram message. “It seems weird to say now, but I couldn’t stand beer back then. This is what eased me into being able to appreciate it. I used to feel so cool sitting next to my punk rock boyfriends in shitty bars drinking headless shaker pints of #9 out of dirty glasses.”
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Powered by #9, Magic Hat became one of America’s biggest craft breweries, pumping out 185,000 barrels at its peak in 2011 and sparking a fruity craze. In the late 1990s, the phone rang daily at Brooklyn Brewery’s beer distribution arm, Craft Brewers Guild, “begging for us to carry Magic Hat #9,” says Dana Ball, now the owner of Upward Brewing in Livingston Manor, N.Y. “When we finally brought that beer in, it was neck to neck with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and set all sales standards in tap lines and case SKUs for countless years.”
Were #9’s final days truly numbered? Our crack VinePair reporting team (read: me and my editor, Tim McKirdy) sent multiple emails to FIFCO’s PR team. The responses provided less clarity than a hazy IPA. “We don’t have any news regarding Magic Hat production to share at this time,” a rep wrote. “We’ll be happy to update you should that change.”
Naturally, we wondered if it would be accurate to report that Magic Hat #9 is no longer in production. The response was that “it would be inaccurate to say it’s no longer in production.” Multiple requests for clarification were left unanswered.
I reached out to the Reddit thread’s original poster, discovering that they were also left in the dark. “Unfortunately, FIFCO has yet to release an official statement about Magic Hat no longer being brewed even to their wholesalers, but our communication with our supplier rep has told us that the brand is officially discontinued,” they told me. “That is still the only information we have received up to this point.”
The Origins of Magic Hat #9
In 1994, brewer Bob Johnson and serial entrepreneur Alan Newman, who cofounded eco-friendly Seventh Generation, opened Burlington’s Magic Hat Brewing. The first year-round beer was an Irish red ale, but “we realized we needed a summer beer that was lighter and more drinkable,” says Newman, who I reached on the phone in Mexico City.
The duo sought inspiration from the Pacific Northwest’s thriving brewing scene, taking note of the popular Apricot Ale from Pyramid Breweries in Seattle. “Fruit beers were just killing it out in the Northwest,” Newman says. “I said to my partner, ‘Bobby, we need to create a fruit beer. Here’s your challenge: I don’t like fruit beers, and I’ve got to be able to drink it.’”
“The creativity that we got to do was way ahead of the curve. Was it skittish and running on three wheels a lot of the time? Absolutely. We were in a constant state of growth and it was just go, go, go.”
Johnson built a moderate-strength pale ale infused with apricot essence, and the mysteriously named #9 hit Burlington taps in summer 1995. The beer was designed to disappear come fall, but calls from angry bar owners threatening to stop carrying Magic Hat beers led Newman to turn #9 into a year-round release. “It was never intended to do anything,” Newman says. “We were just trying to find a way to sell beer.”
The beer thrived on neglect and even disdain. “Beer geeks at the time f*cking hated it, but the more they hated it, the better the sales were,” Newman says, adding that #9 was nobody’s favorite beer at the brewery.
Magic Hat initially spent scant dollars to support #9. “I could argue that we spent the first two years doing absolutely nothing to help it grow, almost working to kill it,” Newman says. “And then one day we went, ‘What the f*ck are we thinking here?’ And so we got on the bandwagon and it just kept growing.”
Magic Hat #9 developed a cult following, especially with the college-aged crowd. When I mentioned on Instagram that I was writing this story, underaged remembrances flowed into my DMs. “It was a big beer on college campuses,” one person wrote, adding that #9 “pushed me over to full-fledged craft beer convert.”
During the mid-1990s, a former University of Vermont undergrad would go to the brewery and buy cases of growlers of #9. “Fake IDs, of course,” he added.
At Rutgers University in the 2000s, one co-ed frat had set beers for occasions. Natural Light for everyday drinking, Yuengling for birthdays and “initiation, the biggest event of them all, was ALWAYS a keg of #9,” another follower chimed in.
“It was the first beer I ever drank, underage at an Allman Brothers concert, and I threw up,” a Vermont native wrote. “Somehow I still liked it though!”
After Massive Growth, the Brewery’s Sales Led to Its Decline
As demand for #9 grew, so did the Magic Hat brewery. It expanded into a former lumberyard in South Burlington in 1997, the same year that brewer Todd Haire joined the company. “People wanted to be a part of the brand of Magic Hat because of #9,” Haire says. “There was a mystique.”
The brewery attracted a creative crew with an artistic or musical inclination who worked vigilantly to make everything work, from branding to production of smoked beers, sour ales, and barrel-aged barley wines and braggot, a mixture of beer and mead. “The creativity that we got to do was way ahead of the curve,” Haire says. “Was it skittish and running on three wheels a lot of the time? Absolutely. We were in a constant state of growth and it was just go, go, go.”
With sales of #9 increasing by double digits, there seemed to be no end to customers’ thirst for the “sort of dry, crisp, refreshing, not-quite pale ale,” as the marketing went. In 2008, Magic Hat acquired Pyramid Breweries (makers of the Pyramid and MacTarnahan’s brands), creating a bicoastal powerhouse known as Independent Brewers United.
In business, it’s tough to pinpoint peaks until the downfall. By the late 2000s, #9 was starting to struggle, Newman says, and then came the financial crisis. In 2010, New York City private equity firm KPS Capital Partners purchased Magic Hat, rolling it up into the North American Breweries platform that included Genesee, Seagram’s Escapes, and Labatt, and was headquartered in Rochester, N.Y. Newman was forced out.
“The brewery died the minute they let Alan go,” says Haire, who left the following year.
“I think of #9 as a building block for Vermont beer culture.”
The private equity firm cut expenses by slashing Magic Hat’s sales and marketing departments, before selling North American Breweries to FIFCO in 2012. Magic Hat continued brewing in Burlington until 2020, when production shifted to Rochester and Zero Gravity Craft Brewery purchased the facility. “Magic Hat lost its local connection,” says Matt Canning, general manager at Hotel Vermont in Burlington. “I used to say it was more likely to be found at Chicago O’Hare than Burlington’s waterfront.”
The legacy of #9, and Magic Hat, can be found in its family tree. Former head brewer Matt Cohen founded Fiddlehead Brewing in Shelburne, Vt., and Haire and fellow Magic Hat veterans founded Foam Brewers in Vermont.
“I think of #9 as a building block for Vermont beer culture,” Canning says.
When Zero Gravity purchased Magic Hat’s facility, the lager-focused brewery retained multiple employees, and multiple brewers who previously worked at Magic Hat as well. “It’s just crazy how much of a footprint that Magic Hat put on Vermont brewing,” says Matt Wilson, the CEO and a co-founder of Zero Gravity.
Every brand has an expiration date, and prior success is no indicator of future prosperity. The fast-changing beer world discards styles and brands as easily as bottle caps — even ones, like Magic Hat #9, that once bore fun messages.
“Honestly, the first thing that popped into my head was, ‘Magic Hat was still around?’” Tom Acitelli, author of “The Golden Age of Beer,” told me after I explained my article.
Maybe this article is not an epitaph for #9 and the brand owners are waiting for the right nostalgic moment to revive the beer with a big splash. (Hey, PR! Drop us an email!) After all, the 1990s are in fashion again. No matter what, don’t expect Newman to play a role in any revival. He tried several times in the 2010s to repurchase Magic Hat, but the two sides couldn’t agree on numbers.
“A couple of years ago someone asked, ‘Are you sorry that you lost Magic Hat?’ And I said, ‘Well, of course I was,’” Newman recalls. “But the reality is, looking back, maybe it was time for me to get out.”
Hindsight and distance provide clarity. Magic Hat helped transform craft beer, the fervor for Vermont beer paving a path for the region’s hazy IPAs. Says Newman, “Magic Hat was a brand for its times, but the times have changed.”
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