Review of Big Bear Malt Liquor
Posted By Ken Saturday, 04 April 2009 09:52
Big Bear was a review that we had posted on this site a long time ago, and didn't realize until recently it was one of those that came to an end when Zach's server crashed and he hadn't backed up the database for awhile. We were able to recover a lot (thank you, Google cached pages), but some we forgot about like this one. So, Zach was "kind enough" to get another 40 ouncer for us to try it again and re-write the review. See how this stacks up in the world of malt by reading on.
Ken's Review
Taste: C+ Big Bear, not to make a really cheap joke, is one of those that you would almost rather have a bear smacking you around than drink this shit. The taste starts off fine, but that only lasts about a second before you get a kick of the bad malt taste in your mouth. The aftertaste doesn't last long, but any amount of time you can taste the remnants of this is too long. In an interesting note, we only tried a small portion of this 40, and revisited it after it was in Zach's fridge for about 3 weeks. We were surprised to learn that this actually smooths out the taste, and makes it almost good. But this lasts until about your 4th or 5th swill, then it starts to regain it's agressive taste.
Packaging: A- The only real highlight to the Big Bear bottle is the giant bear rising up from above the name on the label with an almost comically angry face and his claws ready to rip something's face off. Sure, the bear itself is great, but I like how it kind of depicts that this is a pretty angry tasting malt, and you should be warned that if you want smoothness, you came to the wrong place.
Value: C+ I don't know exactly how much Zach paid for this, but anything over a dollar in my opinion is a rip-off. If you were able to grab this 40 for, say, 99 cents this would put the value a lot higher. But with the taste factor you can spend a couple bucks on much better malt than this.
Drunkeness: B+ Big Bear rocks a 7.5% alcohol content. If you are actually brave enough to complete a 40 of this nastiness, then my hat is off to you. It didn't take long before I started to get a headache from this stuff, and that was only a few swills in. I've had the times of malt liquor sickness and hangover, and if I had that on this stuff I'm sure I would rather drive to the woods and find me a bear to divert my problems elsewhere.
Overall: C+ While Big Bear is by no means the worst malt I've ever tried, it ranks up there as being one of the skankier ones, and therefore I'm going to create my own backup of this review so I will never have to write it again. If you want to give a drinking buddy a mean birthday present, or you are just looking for a good way to forget any problems you have by creating a set of new ones, Big Bear is for you. If you want to have some quality malt, keep going down the line in the liquor store for something else.