What Was Your First Magic Hat Experience?

We want to hear all about it your first time...with Magic Hat, be it gory, glory or borey. We feel that your first craft beer is a rite of passage, and thus should be studies, scrutinized and shared. We won't judge you...much. 

To get you going, here’s a little ditty of our own:

“Some friends and I took a trip to Burlington to visit another friend who had been interning, pro bono, at a local graphic design firm. His bosses had decided to hook him up with several cases of #9 to thank him for slaving away all summer. He in turn threw a party.

We arrived early evening, cramped from the car and yearning for a beer and some grilled meat. Still with a year of college left, we were used to drinking at house parties, which weren’t too keen on offering taste-laden libations. I expected Red Dog and Solo cups, which I would’ve gladly downed. We threw our stuff on the dark-stained hardwood floor of the downtown sublet and asked where the beer was. Our friend smiled and led us into the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator door.

The only thing I can to which I can compare the scene that follwed is when Indiana Jones is on the island at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, tied to a pole opposite the lovely Marion. Men huddled around this chilled receptacle, waiting to see the contents that would guide the rest of their night and, possibly, the rest of their lives. The light came on as the door swung open, revealing three full shelves of #9 bottles, five deep and ten across. The light from the small bulb reflected off each bottle, magnifying it tenfold and casting a glorious brown bottle hue across our faces. Visions and possibility swirled around us like agitated yeast. We reached in all at once and grabbed our first craft beer, attempting to unscrew the caps before realizing we needed a bottle opener. Wisdom waited beneath each cap, a hidden homily that we carefully considered before tasting.

We celebrated well into the early hours of the next day. The following morning, we woke to find a door no longer on its hinges, a five-foot pyramid of bottles in the middle of the living room, someone sleeping on the stairs and cooked bacon laying on every kitchen surface. We ate the bacon haven’t looked back since.”