Shitty Beer Tuesday #6: Coors Light

Brewed By: Coors Brewing Company (MillerCoors) in Golden, Colorado

Purchased: Single, big-ass, bomber can (24oz) from Jewel-Osco in Illinois; 2011

Style/ABV: Pale Ale/Lite American Lager, 4.2%

Another week...another shitty beer. Thanks to Miller's "man up" advertising campaign, I feel like another round of shit-slinging is needed. Miller and Coors are of course one and the same. The two companies are going to finally merge...or are they already merged? Who the fuck knows; it's hard to keep track of the business side of big beer. What is clear is that the larger international company, SABMiller, is at the top of the food chain, with smaller regional companies like MillerCoors turning out beer.

Coors Light has been my preferred cheap beer of choice for a long time. I swear this stuff tastes pretty decent, especially coming from a bottle. But Coors Light is also the most gimmicky beer on earth. This is the beer that is "frost brewed" and transported to your local grocery store by an ice train driven by scantly clad women. This is the beer with "cold activated" mountains. This beer is colder than Ice Cube. This beer is so full of shit it could only be served in Coor's "Silver Bullet" can.

"I thought it said Coors!"

Today I want to address an issue that I brought up last week during my Shitty Beer Review of Miller Lite: beer commercials. But before I launch into my commercial rant, I want to point out the best thing that Coors Light has done: sponsored one of my favorite TV shows, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The gang on It's Always Sunny are constantly drinking Coors, talking about Coors, or boldly displaying Coors-branded stuff. In one episode, Charlie mistakes a "Closed" sign for a "Coors" sign. Hilarity ensues. So, I guess....thank you Coors Light. That is the one example of good advertising from Coors. Beer advertising is bookoo bucks, and millions of dollars are spent each year on advertising beer. So I want to take a brief moment to reflect on some of my favorite and least favorite beer commercials, and look at who makes them.

Beer Commercials

The Good:

• Bud Light's real men of genius commercials are hilarious, as evident by this. 
• Bud Light Swear Jar. This is the best commercial ever, I literally laughed out loud. "**** you Bob." "Ha, **** you, Jim!" 
• Budweiser Frogs 
• Bud Lizards
• Bud Light Fridge Tunnel. "AHHHHHHHHH" 
• Bud Light Hawk. This hawk is my hero. 
• Coors Light Coach series. These are funny, but they lose their comedy potential with repeat viewings.

The Bad:

• Budweiser WAAAAZZZZUUUUPPPP. Seriously, fuck this joke. 
• Coors "Love Train" Light. Cold, hard, and made out of steel. More like the Coors dildo.
• Most Miller commercials. "Triple Hops." "Great taste." Blah blah, where the hell is the funny?
  

The Ugly: 

• ALL the Miller Lite "Man Up" commercials. These commercials are sexist, homophobic, homoerotic, racist, stupid, and not funny. 

You're probably wondering where I am going with all this. Maybe you're thinking, so what? These are beer commercials, who gives a shit. But there's a really interesting trend if you look at the most memorable and funny beer commercials. The real funny commercials are for Bud Light and Budweiser beers. Anheuser-Busch is doing something right with their advertising department. The Bud Light Swear Jar is the funniest fucking beer commercial I have seen in America in a long time. Meanwhile, MillerCoors is busy advertising Triple Hops and calling everyone a homo who doesn't drink Miller Lite. Strange times, right? 

Let's see how Coors Light stacks up compared to the Miller Lite and the other Pale Lagers out there. I need a beer break anyway.

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Again, I opted for the over-sized can instead of a 6-pack. I actually don't mind sessioning Coors Light, and I was tempted to pick up a sixer, but I purchased this bomber with the Miller Lite bomber so I figured let's save a few dollars. 

First off, props for calling it Coors Light and not Lite. Lite is a slang word, and that fact is something that people seem to be rapidly forgetting. The beer pours a golden-clear color. This one isn't quite as watery looking as the Miller Lite, and has an okay gold-yellow color. There is a lot of carbonation in this beer as evident by the big bubbles rising upwards and the crackling carbonation during the pour. The head is white and quickly dissolved from 2-fingers to nothing in about 10 seconds after the pour. There is absolute no head on the beer, but still a ton of rising carbonation. 

12 ounces of Coors Light nets you around 105 calories. That means 24 ounces of this stuff only sets you back 210 calories. Some Imperial Stouts push 300+ calories per 12 ounces. But is the calorie deficit worth it?

Coors Light

The Aroma on the Coors Light is corn/rice adjunct big time, some white bread, grain, maybe some very very subtle hop notes (tea-like hops, maybe lemon?), and a soft and subtle metallic/metal note. There's no fruitiness (DMS, Apples, etc.) or cloying/astringent smells, so the nose is pretty clean. 

The taste is grainy with some white bread notes, lots of rounded green apple notes, corn/rice adjunct flavors, mineral water, and some sweetness but not your typical cardboard-caramel or cereal sweetness you often get in Pale Lagers. Although watery, I find this beer to have good bread and apple notes without the obnoxious sweet notes corn/rice adjuncts often give off (I'm looking at you, Budweiser....). There's very very mild hop notes imparting some lemony flavors in the background.  As the beer warms up I do taste a little cereal-cardboard, but no cloying or astringent notes found here.

Rating: Above-Average
Score: 83%

Despite the gimmicks and the shitty advertising, this is one of the better Light Pale Lagers/Lite American Lagers. There is good flavor here, especially for 105 calories per 12 ounces. This beer is light on the mouthfeel, watery, not remotely complex, but has okay depth on the palate for the style. There's actually a lot more flavor here compared to Miller Lite. The front end is carbonated, sweet, and grainy. The middle rolls into rice/corn, white bread, and apples. The back end is more adjunct and grain and finishes refreshingly.

This is a good, cheap beer to drink with pizza or bar food, to play drinking games with, to get drunk by, or just to kick back with on a hot day after mowing your lawn or while watching a baseball game. Sometimes you want a beer like this. 

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Compared to Budweiser or even Heineken, I find Coors Light to be fairly clean and restrained. Budweiser might have a leg-up in making funny beer commercials, but Budweiser is nasty shit when it warms up or if you have to drink more than 2 of them. You can drink 12 Coors Lights in a night, and still sort of feel like a champ. You might have a headache the next day, but that comes with the territory.

I just need to end with one last thing. I want to go over all the Coors gimmicks:

Super Cold Activation - There are two stages of cold. "Cold" and "Super Cold." The beer turns "Cold" when the beer is below 39 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm not sure how cold the beer is when it is "Super Cold," but anything below 39 is impossible to taste because it numbs your taste buds. Is this an admission that Coors tastes like shit when it warms up? Well, most Pale Lagers taste like shit when they hit warm temperatures, so drink 'em cold. But below 39 is ridiculous.

Vented Wide Mouth - My can says it has a "Vented Wide Mouth." There is a little vent thing and the hole in the can is a little bigger than your standard can. I guess this helps you drink the beer more quickly, or it allows you to fuck the can if you are packing below-average heat. I doubt it helps with taste, and you really should pour your beer into a glass anyway. At least Coors knows its target demographic: underage fratboys who are going to chug beer. Here's some advice for all the bro-douche-frat bags out there: punch a hole in the bottom of the can and shotgun that shit like a man. This should be negative points to Coors for making the frat-douche experience less fun.

Frost Brew Liner - I guess this liner on the can protects the beer or keeps it cold or something? It sounds like Coors is just making shit up at this point. I was with you guys on the Blue Mountains and the Wide Mouth, but what the fuck is a Frost Brew Liner?

The Verdict: MillerCoors are one and the same. Miller advertises their beer by attacking your manliness. They also advertise "great taste, less filling" and "triple hop brewed." It's all bullshit. Coors is the other side of the bullshit coin with their "our beer is so fucking cold and it is delivered on a silver train!" Both beers are predicated on gimmicky bullshit instead of actual brewing techniques, and it's a damn shame that Budweiser tastes like shit and Coors Light doesn't, because I would love to throw Coors under the bus. At least Budweiser makes funny commercials.

I've gone on for long enough. Coors Light actually tastes okay, but do you want to support MillerCoors and their unfunny, gimmicky advertising by purchasing their beer? What option does Joe-average really have? Budweiser tastes like shit, and not many craft breweries are turning out Pale Lagers. I'll be getting some Bud Light soon to see how it stacks up compared to Miller Light and Coors Light. In the meantime, enjoy your Shitty Beer!