Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Hamm's

This article was going to suffer from a lack of babes, fortunately I remembered Hammer Films star Ingrid Pitt.  Here she is offering you some delicious beer (possibly Hamm's?)

I don’t really have much of a plan when it comes to deciding which beers to review and when.  Sometimes I think of something I want to say about a particular beer or a joke I want to make and purchase accordingly.  Who can forget the biting “deer blowjob” social commentary in my review of Buck Range Light?  More often than not though, I just end up seeing something at the grocery store and buying it without any prior thought.  Such is the case with Hamm’s .  The only joke that immediately sprang to mind was that Hamm’s sounds almost exactly like the word “ham.”  (Hilarious!)  I bought it anyway and decided to come up with something that didn’t involve homophones when I got home.

LOL!!!

Possibly the weirdest thing for me about Hamm’s is that I’ve known the chorus and tune of the Hamm’s commercial jingle “From the Land of Sky Blue Waters” as far back as I can remember, despite the fact that I only became aware of Hamm’s existence in my early 20’s.  I find it odd that I can remember a commercial jingle from 25+ years ago, but I have absolutely no recollection why I’m covered in blood right now.  As far as Hamm’s is concerned, it seems that America’s cultural memory is similar to my own.  During my research I found tons of information about the Hamm’s Jingle, their mascot The Hamm’s Beer Bear, and various promotional items the brewery released over the years (beach towels, refrigerator magnets, vanity catheters, etc.) but came up short when it came to the actual history of the beer.

Sammy Hagar is worse than Hagar the Horrible

Specifically, I couldn’t find any information pertaining to the beer’s fall from nationally advertised grace to the bottom of the bottomshelf.  I do know that after operating as an independent brewery from 1865 to 1968 the company got punted around until it was acquired by Miller in 1999.  Miller’s eventual goal is to phase Hamm’s out of production with the hopes that people switch to other Miller products.  Personally, I can’t think of a bleaker future than one that precludes beers like Hamm’s in favor of godamned Miller Lite.  It makes 1984 look like 1999 (the Orwell novel and the Prince album, not the Van Halen album and the Prince album because both albums are pretty fucking sweet.)  My only hope is that this dystopian future will somehow involve Judge Dredd riding around Mega-City One shooting people in the fucking face.  More likely it’ll involve a lot of 90’s era Aerosmith and shooting CD’s at a bunch of nearly identical government thugs.  

Dredd 3D was one of the best movies I've ever seen and it bombed.  You people disgust me.  Someday they'll make a Revolution X movie and you retards will eat it up like the last three Transformers movies.

No caption necessary

All that being said, Hamm’s is pretty good.  It’s about as stripped down as a beer can be, while still tasting exactly like beer should.  If I had to choose one beer to represent American beer on a deep space mission, Hamm’s would be my Kal-El son of Jor-El.  (In this elaborate hypothetical Bill Clinton is Lex Luther and George W. Bush is Brainiac.  Figure it out stupids.)  Essentially, I think Hamm’s isn’t great but it’s one of the beeriest beers that ever beered.  To those of you that think it’s kind of a copout to say that a beer tastes like beer, let me say that totally I agree with you.  On that note, Hamm’s is kind of grainy like MGD but not as harsh, like a slightly fancier Miller High Life.  That’s right, it’s fancier than the champagne of beers.

 

 

Ingrid Pitt, from the film Where Eagles Dare.  Note:  She Ain't No Goddamn Sonofabitch! (you better think about it baby)

I think this one turned out pretty well, and I got to try a decent beer for the very first time.  I’m going to call it before I say something stupid, well stupider than usual.  I do drink a lot.  Before I wrap it up, I have to say that it’s really unfortunate that a once proud beer seems relegated to the sands of history.  Go buy some Hamm’s so we can prevent a future where the only choices are Miller Lite and going sober.  You won’t like me when I’m sober.

Fortunately I don't see that happening anytime soon.

 If you like these updates, but hate waiting around for updates check out the dank comedy nugs I'm droppin' on twitter ya'll!

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Miller Genuine Draft

About ten or fifteen years ago it seemed to me like Miller Genuine Draft was everywhere.  It might have just been that people stopped buying it for my family parties, but lately I haven’t seen MGD around nearly as much.  I don’t know it’s just that Miller is spending all of their advertising dollars trying to convince everyone that Miller Lite is masculine and something that straight guys should, nay must, drink, but I can’t remember the last time I saw an for MGD during a football game.  They certainly still sell the stuff, so I guess I’m going to have to drink it.

Hello sexy lady from the 90's, nice shorts.

The first thing I noticed was that MGD has a ton of flavor.  It tastes kind of like a more full bodied Miller High Life, which makes sense because MGD was originally called “Miller High Life Genuine Draft” when it was released in 1985 (Bears!)  It tastes pretty good at first, great even.  Honestly after the first sip I thought I was going to have to reevaluate my stance on MGD then the aftertaste hit: textbook poo aftertaste. There are plenty of bottomshelf beers with aftertastes that are far worse, but MGD’s really has that unique “poo-ness,”

When I complain about a poo aftertaste the most common question I get asked is, “how do you know what poo tastes like?”  Well, funny story.  When we moved into the house I lived in for the majority of my formative years we inherited an old clubhouse in the backyard.  It would have been cool but it was completely unusable.  Even new, the clubhouse would have been full of exposed nails, and not even the great Lionel Richie himself could have danced on that ceiling without a tetanus shot.  As it was when we acquired it, the clubhouse had turned rotten and it was full of goddamned hornets.

Unfortunately, in real life hornets have no casting cost

What are you smiling at?

Hornets are second only to possums as the most vile of God’s creations.  They don’t make honey.  They don’t pollinate flowers.  And they don’t turn into butterflies (not that bees do, but still.)  They just fucking sting you till you die.  As you’ve no doubt surmised, I can’t stand hornets (and WASPS for that matter, but that’s just because I distrust Protestants.)  At five years old I was no different, so my friends and I got to thinking of a way to rid ourselves of the hornet menace once and for all.  One of us struck on the notion that if we didn’t like the smell of dogshit, hornets probably didn’t like it either.  Next thing you know we’re picking up dog poo on a stick and throwing it through the clubhouse window.  Genius. 

Genuine class

The plan started out well enough, well as well as any plan can go that involves running around throwing dogshit on a stick.  Unfortunately I zigged when I should have zagged, and got a mouthful of dogpoop for my troubles.  It’s about as gross as it sounds and tasted just as good as you think it would.  I hightailed it into the house and washed my own mouth out with soap, because toothpaste just wasn’t going to cut it.  The only good thing about the whole ordeal was that I was really young and it happened outside of school, otherwise I’d be “that guy that got a mouthful of dogshit” till the day I died.  In conclusion I guess you could say I’m somewhat of an expert on whether or not something tastes like dogshit, and MGD’s aftertaste certainly does.    

Ginuine cupcakes

On the other hand it has a great looking website.  It may not seem like much of a compliment in light of my dog poo comments, but it was very refreshing to see an aesthetically pleasing bottomshelf beer website.  Most beer websites are all crudded up with annoying flash animation and stupid sound effects, like they were designed for someone that huffs roach spray out of a paper bag.  MGD’s website on the other hand, was great and it helpfully links to MGD Canada’s facebook page, which raised a lot more questions than it answered.  Is it run by Canadians or real Americans?  I bring this up because they talk surprisingly little about maple syrup, moose shit, or Canadian National Treasure Alanis Morissette.

Sarah Chalke, one of my favorite Canadians

Miller Genuine Draft may have kind of a fecal aftertaste, and it may not confer all of the totally-hetero-super-powers that Miller Lite does.  It’s still a hell of a lot better than Miller Lite, and you can do a lot worse as far as bottomshelf beers go, and that’s the Genuine truth! (I’ve been waiting the entire post to say that.  Now that I’ve done it I feel kind of empty.  This is an existential crisis.  Let’s end this.)

...and we'll bring it home with a little more Sarah Chalke