Fish Beer Friday – Northwoods Brewing Mac & Margie Double IPA
Just when I’d thought I’d found every fishy beer at my local liquor store, this gem appeared out of nowhere. It appears Northwoods Brewing Co. has a whole line of fishy brews, which makes me happy. The first one we tested was their Mac & Margie Double IPA.
I don’t know who Mac and Margie are (were?), but it appears they had serious fishing skills, and they have been immortalized with their likenesses, hoisting huge salmon, on a beer can. How cool is that? Interestingly, this brewery has chosen to run two different labels, one featuring Mac and the other featuring Margie, which I think is pretty nifty. I must note that I was so mesmerized by the awesome packaging that I failed to notice the price tag. At $20 for a 4-pack, this is one of the most expensive fishy brews we’ve come across.
The beer has a nice hazy, golden-bronze color and pours with a moderate head. For a double IPA, it was sweeter than I expected; I would describe it as a peppery maltiness. It has a pretty high alcohol content, and it faintly reminded me of Colt 45. Overall, it scored pretty well. Seven fishy taste-testers awarded it a final score of 7.3, higher than I expected, but I don’t know if I can say with good faith that this beer is worth the extravagant price tag.
COMMENTS:
“Wow! $20 for a 4-pack? ”
“Lil Sweet!”
“My new goal in like is to have my picture with a fish on a beer can.”
7 on “Fish Beer Friday – Northwoods Brewing Mac & Margie Double IPA”
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Jeffrey Roberts $20 for a double IPA in 16oz four packs is a little high, but in line with others in the market. The cost to produce these is really what drives the price, not the popularity of the style. Beer is not your grandfather’s Schlitz anymore.
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Tom 5 bucks a beer a little pricey but it might be worth a try, fishing with your buddies and cracking one open is priceless
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Mark Petrecki 30 million unemployed nation wide and you introduce a $20 4 pack? Who does your marketing?
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Matt This is not much different then most of the highly hopped craft beer on the market today. These beers use a stupid amount of hops to balance out the huge amount of malt needed to get the alcohol to 8%. This is highly justified.
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Chris In light of the difficult situation everyone is in I believe they have dropped the price of all 4 packs to $10. Great beer!!!!!
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jeffreygblais You would pay up to $7 if you went out on the town. It’s nice to find a beer that steps out from all the others after a long day on the water or a long day at work. Every one deserves a treat once in a while!
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Sarah Hi Andy! This is Sarah over at Northwoods Brewing Company. First, thank you so much for featuring Mac & Margie! Love that you’re devoted to trying all the fishy beers! These two skilled individuals are actually my great grandparents. My dad’s an avid outdoorsman, something they instilled in him. This was his way of paying them tribute! I’m glad you enjoyed the cans, and I hope you do get to grace a label some day 🙂
I also just wanted to note that once we sell our beer to our distributors and they then bring it to various stores, the stores do get to set their own margins- that pricing is unfortunately out of our hands. If you come to the brewery (shout out to Chris for pointing this out!), we have decided to sell the majority of our four-packs for $10. Mac & Margie and Glass DDH (check out that label for more fishing fun!) four-packs are $15 in-house due to high demand and the pricing of ingredients.
Thank you again for the feature and we hope you stay well during these strange times!
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