Let me get this out of the way - I like crappy beer. I love obscure, cheap domestic beer that comes in cans. I certainly have no issues with "good" beer, but most of the time I'd prefer to drink the crappiest stuff available. When you see the line of cans/bottles across a bar to show you what they sell, I'm always looking at the far left end. I don't pour my beer into a glass, I don't smell my beer before drinking it and if it comes in a 30 pack I generally like it. I plan to use the Inexpensive Beer Report to focus on those long forgotten beers that your ancestors used to drink after 12 hour days in the coal mines.
But I digress, onto Hamms. This beer has a storied history, which dates back to 1865. It was relatively localized to the midwest, but odds are that your pappy & grandpappy drank it at some point in their lives. In the 50s & 60, Hamms sponsored both the Chicago White Sox & Chicago Cubs. If you're a Chicago native, that's as good as playing both kinds - Country and Western. It was a pretty popular blue-collar beer in the 60s & 70s, but by early 90s it was all but forgotten. Nowadays, nobody under 50 drinks Hamms , though the threat of a hipster renaissance always looms large.
From the 50s through the 80s they had one of the catchiest jingles and mascots in beer history:
If a lobotomized black & white bear doesn't make you want to sling some Hamms, then you don't have a soul. But since this is a beer review blog, I'm going to stick to the nomenclature and review it like any other professional.
Price: 7/10 - The local Dominicks by my house picked it up recently, which is SHOCKING. I live in a middle-class suburb of Chicago and you typically gotta hit the city proper to find a quality brew like Hamms. It was originally $2.99 for a sixer, but I went today and it was $3.19 - which pisses me off to no end. I know I can easily spend more money for a can of Old Style at a bar, but I'm certain that the price hike is due to me buying them out every time I go.
Aroma: N/A - I did pour it in a glass and smelled it. Smells like beer... while prepping for this, my first official online beer review, I researched the popular beer review sites. Some fucking guy was reviewing a Sam Adams beer and said he could smell pineapple and cornbread in his beer. If I ever get to that level, the first person to recognize me on the street should swiftly end my life. The chances of me ever writing something like that, even if it's .000001%, means that there will be no more smelling of the beer. I just can't risk being that big of a douche...
Taste: 7/10 - In the glass, Hamms is relatively weak tasting - but very little bite or aftertaste. Just just a quality beer at a quality price. I would put it below Schlitz, and a step above PBR on the Pantheon of Shit Beer.
Pouring beer in a glass: 0/10 - Beer aficionados do this because it tends to let the beer breathe, letting you get all those smells and hops and barleys and that other crap. To me it kind of exposes the weak overall taste of the Hamms. It really does taste different than out of the can, and I don't like these hoity toity sons of bitches taking some of the luster out of Hamms. I prefer to wallow in my ignorance, and future Inexpensive Beer Reports are can only.
Critical links for further study
- The Hamms Club - Some dedicated, Hamms lovin mofos
- Find Hamms in your area
- Hamms MySpace page - Will likely lead to above hipster renaissance, but then again hipsters are on Facebook
- Ratebeer's Hamms reviews - Idiots, all of them
8 comments:
I would read a book written by you about beer snobs, good shit here.
PS I love me some Hamms
I present to you the most prized piece in my beer vessel collection....I give you the Hamm's bear celebrating Oktoberfest.
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j153/CurtFlood/October_072103.jpg
Well done, Gantry. That might be one of the finest reviews, beer or otherwise, I have ever read.
Time to find some Hamms. A step above PBR? That's a bold statement, my friend.
After years of smoking (even after quitting for years) I still can't smell shit, I'm with you on the no aroma test. I can barely smell the beer smell, for fuck's sake.
You rate Schlitz better than PBR? Schlitz is easier to find here and I end up liking the PBR a little bit better.
First of all, PBR is better than Schlitz and Hamm's. Second of all, my worst hangover EVER was due to drinking a 6'er of Hamm's Genuine Draft in Kansas City, and that's saying a lot coming from a guy who regularly puts down 10-12 beers in a single sitting. Thirdly, all "shit" beer should be served ice cold in a frosty mug, otherwise the true shittiness of the beer starts to shine through. Shocking your taste buds with coldness is the only way to survive beer like Hamm's.
Hamms is the BANC!
Im going to write up PBR as soon as 'Fake Irishe Week' is over.
Expect a complete and total hate spiehl. Sad thing is, I used to like the stuff. It's sugar water!
I drank this stuff out in oregon. I fondly remember a white graffiti artist telling me how he'd had two 40's of malt liquor, only to be utterly horrified when I told him hamm's was just beer. As I recall, a 40 was 1.20 in 1998. Cheap.
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