Big Hurt Beer Review
Cognitive dissonance is a heck of a thing.
Like, I like Frank Thomas. He got a little sanctimonious at times, and his head was kind of misshapen, but he also was on the front of the first $20+ card I ever got in a pack (1990 Stadium Club, now on sale for $1), and for like seven years at the beginning of the 1990s he was like straight fire unleashed on the league. For those seven years he had a .330/.452/.604 line… 835 walks to 528 strikeouts…
And then I read the Tribune talk some trash on the beer. Like, really knock it:
“Extremely cold, it has a relatively neutral and inoffensive taste — sort of like a heartier Miller Lite — at least until you get to the oddly sweet and deeply unpleasant finish. As it warms, both taste and finish become more pronounced, which is not a compliment. Instead, it starts to taste like the liquid version of 103 years of futility, and trust me, I know what that tastes like.
I dislike this beer slightly less than I expected, but only because I thought I would dislike it as much as I dislike the Sox. Then again, even the White Sox fan I sit next to at work thought it was lousy.”
You know this sort of thing kinda makes you a little angry. The Tribune is all (self-consciously) hateful towards the White Sox and they bring in the rivalry and it should be about that beer…
But this beer isn’t any good.
And then I set up this whole beer exchange that somehow made sense in some weird way. @julierubes is a Met fan in Chicago, I’m a Met fan in California, and we got twitter-recommended to each other and I sent her some 21st Amendment beers from here, and she sent me some Big Hurts from there, and the whole idea was so awesome I wanted it to be great for both of us, because certainly that Ninkasi/21st Amendment collabo beer I gave her (Allies win the War Ale) was delicous…
But this beer isn’t any good.
I wanted to like it, but cognitive dissonance isn’t that strong. It’s way too sweet and it tastes nastier the more you drink it. Then I found out that it’s tied to the makers of Hermitage and Hoptopia and I disliked it by association as well.
Baseball and beer are so good together when they are good. But there’s only so much the baseball part can do if the beer part isn’t up to it’s end of the bargain.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
“But there’s only so much the baseball part can do if the beer part isn’t up to it’s end of the bargain.”
False. Despite that fact that it was actually quite good, Moylan’s Orange and Black Celebration Ale could have tasted like miller lite and we would have still loved it here in SF during that amazing glow post-2010 WS. Your memories of the Big Hurt just aren’t fresh enough methinks.
Hey I really like the Orange and Black. That was good, no matter the story behind it!
Moylan’s Orange and Black? I’m picturing Peter Moylan in a little black dress with a very bad tan. This is not a good image to start the day with.
http://l.yimg.com/a/p/sp/editorial_image/31/31c6ac7239143e153f2f6b86a3f184dc/truth_peter_moylans_fiance_looks_better_in_a_dress_than_he_does.jpg