{"id":4850,"date":"2013-12-17T21:38:21","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T03:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=4850"},"modified":"2013-12-22T00:16:47","modified_gmt":"2013-12-22T06:16:47","slug":"12-beers-of-christmas-4-magic-hats-g-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/4850\/12-beers-of-christmas-4-magic-hats-g-thing","title":{"rendered":"12 Beers of Christmas 4: Magic Hat\u2019s G-Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gthing-slide\"<\/a>G-Thing only rhymes with G-String. Get your minds out of the gutters and back into the beer glass where they belong. And I promise I\u2019ll get off my east coast bias as soon as possible. (Though Magic Hat does make it out as far west as Colorado.)<\/p>\n

\"gthing<\/a>Though I pretty much put the kibosh on Magic Hat\u2019s Wooly<\/a> as part of last year\u2019s Twelve Beers of Christmas, the Vermont-based (if no longer Vermont-owned) brewery remains persistent. It sent me two bottles from this year\u2019s 12-bottle Winterland Variety Pak, the Heart of Darkness Stout and G-Thing, a ginger spiced ale.<\/p>\n

There are also three bottles each of Encore IPA (a 6.4% Wheat IPA) and the ubiquitous #9 (5.2%).<\/p>\n

By my calculations this means if you buy a 12-pack you\u2019ll have nine drinkable beers, and you won\u2019t have any trouble giving away the three bottles of #9, the brewery\u2019s most popular beer. (See last year\u2019s entry for background on Magic Hat.)<\/p>\n

Of course, it will help with the G-Thing if you like ginger, and cinnamon, which I do. All bets off otherwise. The ginger character comes from the addition of ginger juice, along with six malts (Pale, Caramel Vienna, Caramel Munich, Victory, Chocolate, Wheat), Magnum and Northern Brewer hops, an English ale yeast, and some cinnamon.<\/p>\n

\"Pine<\/a>

Pine Brothers cough drops<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s a deep mahogany brew, brimming with ginger aroma. I had a real sense memory thing going on when I took my first whiff of G-Thing. It reminded me of some kind of chewy, gingery candy I used to munch on as a kid.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d pretty much finished the beer off before I figured out what I was remembering–a Pine Brothers cough drop, which I indeed used to buy and devour pretty much like candy.<\/p>\n

So to pin a \u201ctastes like a cough drop\u201d label on this beer is not indicating a blemish in my book. There\u2019s enough malt backbone to make for a lightly sweet, medium-bodied beer with its holiday gingery snap. Not a world-beater, but not bad for what is probably its sole trip around the block.<\/p>\n

\"Stay<\/a>

Stay Puff Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters”<\/p><\/div>\n

The G-Thing is obviously that label gingerbread creature with a saccharine grin, yet stepping hugely and ominously over a representation of the Burlington brewery. The inspiration here would seem to be the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man from \u201cGhostbusters,\u201d and we know how that turned out.<\/p>\n

No idea what the bottle cap aphorism means. There\u2019s one of these under every Magic Hat bottle cap, though usually less inscrutable than: \u201cGet Boxed at the Philthy Ox.\u201d Surmises are welcomed.\u00a0 [Dec. 17, 2013]<\/em><\/p>\n

\"gthing<\/a>Name: G-Thing
\nBrewer: Magic Hat Brewing Company, South Burlington, Vermont
\nStyle: Spiced ale
\nABV: 5.7%
\nAvailability: Mid-October to mid-January as part of the Winterland Variety Pak, in about nine states.
\nFor More Information: www.magichat.net<\/p>\n

<12 Beers of Christmas 3: Victory\u2019s Winter Cheers<\/a>
\n12 Beers of Christmas 5: 10 Barrel Brewery Pray for Snow ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

G-Thing only rhymes with G-String. Get your minds out of the gutters and back into the beer glass where they… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":4854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[939,627,18],"tags":[633,975754,749,3759,370604,676069,708534,708539,975750,975751,975752,975753],"class_list":["post-4850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-on-tap","category-tap-beer-of-the-week","category-lifestyle","tag-vermont","tag-ghostbusters","tag-christmas","tag-spiced-ale","tag-burlington","tag-christmas-beers","tag-magic-hat","tag-wooly","tag-ginger","tag-g-thing","tag-pine-brothers-cough-drops","tag-stay-puff-marshmallow-man"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2013\/12\/gthing-slide.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4850"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4859,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions\/4859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}