The Nashville Feed

A pleasant early Saturday evening in downtown Nashville shortly before a Predators game makes for sucky parking and crowded streets.
After a quick hunt, we discovered street parking on the northern end of Second Ave. Well developed parallel parking skills open up a whole world of free spots downtown.
A quick march past karaoke bars and fuck me clubs brought us to Big River Grille and Brewing Works, at their longstanding but often overlooked location on the corner of Second and Broadway. The attractive young hostesses pleasantly informed us that we could expect a 45 minute wait for a table.
Bitches.
They did, however, propose that we could scout out our own table in the sizable bar area. Lauren, a former hostess herself, quickly secured a station with neighboring seats that could be annexed as our panel expanded.
Entranced football fans surrounded us on all sides, their gazes jumping from one big screen to the next. Waitresses purposefully danced through the patrons with trays of grease held high. Portly couples and their offspring were sprinkled throughout the loud room; the men in baseball caps and mustaches, the women in large Walmart clothing to hide the loss of youthful curves, and the children in the wrong place if they wanted to enjoy themselves.
The pool tables near the back of the room were largely unused, save for a mulleted gentleman and his challenger.
A great many of these people were presumably tourists. It’s unfortunate that they may have returned to Nutbush, TN with the idea that Big River is representative of Nashville brew pubs.
Big River offered more lightly colored selections than our other stops. This is presumably to comfort patrons accustomed to the urinal water bottled by Miller and Coors.
The three anemic offerings were not well liked by much of our panel. The Oktoberfest was the most well received brew, but even it was stuck in D territory.
When Big River did attempt the richly colored mainstays of other brewpubs it disappointed. A golden ale, pilsner, or light lager is typically compared with those mass produced offerings out of Milwaukee. Anheuser Busch and Pabst set the bar pretty low. A local brewery should be able to trump corporate offerings on freshness alone. But before it treads into the dark waters of beer snob favorites such as stouts and brown ales, it should be certain that it can swim.

Big River, despite their aquatic moniker, cannot swim. Their offerings were the blandest of the night. Other than a certain unidentifiable funkiness that seemed to run through each of their beers, there wasn’t a great deal of taste. That certain unidentifiable funk, according to our leading theory, may have been rooted in Big River’s brewing water. Perhaps they pipe it in unfiltered directly from the nearby Cumberland River.
A few members of our panel did find redeeming qualities in some of the selections, however. And Big River is well positioned for tourists to get loaded before the game or line dancing. The environment is welcoming to loud, obnoxious sports fans and vacationing families. If this is you, and you don’t really care what the hell you drink, then Big River may be worth the 45 minute wait.
We, however, were anxious to leave. Blackstone held a great deal more promise.
Check back Thursday to find if Blackstone kept that promise.

Taste Responses

Oktoberfest

• “Has that sweat sweaty smell of summer in Nashville.” –Kristin Bresowar
• “Mellow and rich…Creamy and upfront, like the Germans.” –Mark Lemley
• “Smooty, foody, bitter aftertaste.” –Tasha French

16th Avenue Pilsner

• “Pretty bad…” –J.J. Bresowar

Nashville Steamer Golden Ale

• “Starts with greywater and finishes with clay.” –J.J. Bresowar
• “Quite tangy and feels like a party in your mouth.” –Kristin Bresowar

Southern Flyer Light Lager

• “Very clean finish, but alas, that initial taste sucks.” –J.J. Bresowar

Sweet Magnolia Brown Ale

• “Nice color. Flavorless mostly.” –J.J. Bresowar

Thick Brick Red Ale

• “Tastes like a wet brick in my mouth…They should make sure sewage doesn’t seep into beer.” –Lauren Orr, a.k.a “Hop Goddess”

Iron Horse Stout

• “Something went wrong. I think that those beer yeasts got swapped with the nasty kind that cause unpleasant infections that women prefer not to speak of.” –Kristin Bresowar
  • • Drink It in Nashville: The idea.
    • Drink It in Nashville: Stop 1 - Yazoo Brewery.

  Previous posts

  beer, brew pub, brewery, microbrew, nashville, big river grille