Let It Beet

Recently, a friend and I went to a barbeque during the few hours of sunshine we’ve had this summer. On the ride over, we stopped to pick up some beverages at a package store I’d never been to before. The selection was pretty limited but we did manage to find a six-pack of Magic Hat’s summer brew, Wacko.

Despite the name, there’s really only one weird thing about this beer: the color. It’s a very unassuming beer; a little sweet and lightly hopped with a medium body. Not really much to write home about except for that color. Seriously, look at that thing. It looks more like a Shirley Temple than a beer. Obviously, I’ve seen red ales before but they’re generally not bright red like Wacko is.

A tiny bit of research reveals that the Magic Hat guys achieved this fantastic hue by adding beet juice into the boil. My response, like yours I’m sure was: Really? Beet juice? I’d never even heard of such a thing. I mean, I guess there’s no reason you couldn’t juice a beet, but who thought of that? (Answer: probably Jack Lalanne.)

However they came up with this brew, let’s all just be thankful that it doesn’t taste like beets. The downside is that it doesn’t taste like much of anything. Even though it’s a pretty bland beer, it still ranks at #2 on the list of my favorite things associated with beets. What’s #1? “Killer Tofu” of course.