#9, Magic Hat Brewing Company

Today's beer has a penchant for mystery.  It is very well known but there is disagreement over what style it represents.  Is it a pale ale or a fruit beer?  There is also disagreement over whether or not it's any good.  On BeerAdvocate the average deviation from the mean review score is 17.49%, the highest I've ever seen.  Mot beers fall in the 8-12 range.  Then there's that name, #9.  No story has been proffered for it by the brewery, leaving drinkers to speculate on its origin.  One idea that I kinda like is that it's a reference to the Beatle's "Revolution 9."  This avant garde track confuses musically much like Magic Hat's #9 appears to confuse flavors.  It would also be quite fitting to reference the song that was meant to be a musical representation of a revolution considering this beer appeared in the mid 90s, a time of revolution in the beer industry.

When I think of #9 however, I don't think of rockers from Liverpool.  I think of The Nines.  The Nines was a movie made in 2007 that has an interesting ability to mystify its audience.  Just ask google autofill.

I blocked out what is explained to that person.
p.s.  It's wrong.

The thing about The Nines is it's not very confusing.  The characters even explain it in the movie.  Meanwhile there are movies like Mulholland Drive that really don't make any sense at all.  That movie's director has even been asked to explain it and refused.  But critics love Mulholland Drive, defending its borderline stream of consciousness with statements like, "...the film is an intoxicating liberation from sense, with moments of feeling all the more powerful for seeming to emerge from the murky night world of the unconscious."  Magic Hat's #9 is not the most out-there beer out there, but a lot of people seem to be turned off by its weirdness.  Come on guys, give it a chance.

The aroma is thick with apricot atop a yeasty body.  It entices you to find out what's down there, so you take your sip and become befuddled.  What happened to the apricot?  From where did these almost lager-like flavors come?  It's like it started out with all these wacky ideas for a new ground-breaking drink and then didn't know how to finish it.  Which is ironic since the finish is actually quite good.  The high alpha acid hop varieties seem more contradictory than complementary to the fruitiness.  The aroma and finish are both yummy beers but the taste is a battle for supremacy between the two.  Maybe this beer is a revolution... in a bottle!

#9 strikes me as a beer that would considered a centrist if more beers were like it.  If there's any real confusion, it's found just under the cap.

Every cap says something nonsensical.  Mine was pretty tame.  But why do they do it?  What does it mean?  How does it connect to the drink?  I'm so confused!