Even the magic of the Christmas mug couldn’t save this guy.

The Specs: Phillips Brewing Co. (Victoria, B.C.) Electric Unicorn White IPA
6.5 per cent ABV, 650 mL, seasonal

It’s a rare, rare day when a truly undrinkable beer passes my lips. You know, the kind of beer where the only proper response is a dismayed face and resolve to get through at least one damn glass of the stuff. For research.

That the first truly bad beer on this blog is coming from Phillips is a shock to me. Phillips’ Blue Buck is one of my go-to craft beers. While I don’t love everything in their lineup equally, nothing has ever led me to believe they’d be capable of… of…

Let me put it this way:

The entire time I was grimacing my way through a glass of Electric Unicorn White IPA, all I could think was, ‘what’s the weird fruity note I can taste alongside all that grass?’

I’m not sure exactly how an electric unicorn differs from the regular type — laser beam eyes, if the bottle label is to be believed — but this IPA tastes exactly like what I’d want to feed to a horse with a horn on its head and undefined magic lightening powers.

What I originally thought might be a grapefruit aftertaste turned solidly pineapple juice after a couple sips. The grassy note, meanwhile, resolved itself into a taste I remember from rolling around in the hayloft of my grandparents’ barn.

Pineapple and hay.

If this sounds better to you than it has to anyone I’ve described it to so far, congrats! Apparently you’re the target audience for this beer.

You and the unicorns.

It probably serves me right for picking a beer simply because its label looked like something that one guy on every university campus who’s still really into Grateful Dead would use decorate his dorm room.

I never have had much time for The Dead.

I should have taken it for the warning it was.