I really like Magic Hat. The brewery’s ubiquitous #9 is seemingly always there to rescue me when faced with a daunting selection of crap beers. I do, however, dislike their clever little bottle caps with the clever little sayings on them, purely because they encourage people to keep the caps around instead of throwing them out, and that my place looks as drunk as I feel. Caps should not be complex. They should exist in a binary state of “open” or “closed.” Actually, scrap binary, because I am pretty sure beer caps exist in the unary state of “open” for me. By the way, Magic Hat runs a contest to put your saying under the cap. Can we all stuff the ballot box and put “Keith says, dispose of me properly” under the cap?

I picked up Magic Hat’s Circus Boy “Hefeweizen” because I really like hefeweizens. I used to live in Germany and that’s all I used to drink. I loved the fruity, creamy flavor and the tall, curvaceous, half liter weizen glass it was served in. German hefeweizens are actually pretty easy to find here in the United States, which is good because our domestic varieties are all sorts of terrible. I’ve always found American hefeweizens lacking. Some have given me nightmares. I’m still in therapy.

OK, they’re not that bad – like take the Circus Boy for example. It’s a perfectly fine beer from a brewery with a nice record of churning out hits. It tastes fine too – nice and light, with wonderful citrusy aromas and flavors, perfect for summer or any time, really. But, hey, it’s not a hefeweizen, at least not the kind I came to adore.  For starters, it’s not as cloudy as its pure German cousins, and I feel like it’s too fizzy which for some reason enhances a weirdly metallic aftertaste. Also, it comes in puny 16oz bottles, which means that you’ll need two of them to fill that nice weizen glass (and you can’t NOT fill the glass – starting with a less than full glass is like being forced to watch Sex and the City even after you know you missed the only part in the episode with boobs).

Maybe I’m just spoiled, but I’d go with a nice Weihenstephaner any day. It comes in a slightly bigger bottle and you can do the awesome hefeweizen pour. Come to think of it, that’s what’s wrong with Circus Boy – no yeast in the bottle. Where’s my yeast, Magic Hat?