Fort Worth Brewery Marries Pickle Beer With Hard Seltzer in New Magic Brine — Wild Acre Gets Wild

Fort Worth’s Wild Acre Brewing has officially entered the hard seltzer market, and its first offering is sure to make you pucker. It’s not just hard seltzer it’s Magic Brine Pickle Hard Seltzer ― marrying the pickle beer craze to what is becoming a hard seltzer movement.

John Pritchett, founder of Wild Acre Brewing Company, opened his brewery in the old Ranch Style Beans Plant at 1734 El Paso Street in June of 2016. He followed it up by opening Wild Acre’s second location on Camp Bowie last March, as a takeout only model amid the coronavirus closures. (PaperCity Fort Worth was first to report this opening.)

Pritchett tapped into his friendship with an old college roommate to pull it off his first ever seltzer. Will Rhodes, owner of Willigan’s Island out of Lockhart, Texas, is the maker of Magic Brine, which he infuses into his handmade, Texas farm-sourced pickled green beans, okra and his straight up Magic Brine All Natural Pickle Juice.

Wild Acre utilized Willigan’s Island’s all natural pickling brine to create a very unique entry into the hard seltzer category ― Pickled Hard Seltzer. It launched at Wild Acre, Tom Thumb, Albertson’s, Spec’s, Whole Foods, Central Market and about 89 HEB stores across Texas.

If you’d like to add entertainment value to your Facebook feed, I suggest following the Willigan’s Island page. Will Rhodes seems to have a lot of fun with it. He and photographer Dave Creaney stage Rhodes in some spot-on nostalgic advertising spreads (so much so, that I thought the photos had been photoshopped).

“It’s a super unique product,” Pritchett tells PaperCity Fort Worth. “Unlike many other hard seltzers on the market that use flavoring extracts, this is an all-natural seltzer infused with an all-natural, preservative-free pickle brine.”

Rhodes says his Magic Brine alone is the perfect splash in your bloody Mary, martini or pickle back. It can be used for brining chicken, shrimp or making ceviche. Although Rhodes makes no medical claims, this Magic Brine is even suggested as a remedy for hangovers and muscle cramps. Thanks to Wild Acre, Lockhart’s all-round-tincture is now an alcoholic beverage as well.

Pritchett describes the taste as “a light, refreshing, nicely carbonated pickle juice.” “I think if craft breweries are going to participate in the hard seltzer market, we have to approach it with just as much creativity as we do our beers,” he says.

Wild Acre’s new Pickle Hard Seltzer is a creative first attempt, but Pritchett says he has plenty of other ideas for future seltzer creations.