American Macro Week: Keystone Light

American Macro WeekKeystone Light was a mainstay beer of my youthful drinking days… it was available at Costco for $7.99 a case, what are you gonna do? Aside from the cheap availability of it, the most outstanding feature of this beer was—according to its commercials—lack of bitterness. You wouldn’t suffer from "bitter beer face."

Even now, its tagline is "Always smooth, even when you’re not." It is smooth (see my notes), I’ll give it that.

Brewed by Coors, 4.2% alcohol. Reviewed from the 24-ounce can at fridge temperature.

Keystone LightAppearance: Very pale—like the Coors Light—head falls quick and overall the beer looks very still.

Smell: Sweet grain and mineral water.

Taste: Watery, with essence of steeped grains. Sweet corn. Very light, bare hint of hops in a grassy note. Blander than most of them.

Mouthfeel: Thin, fairly smooth actually, in a "slick water" kind of way. It’s very clean, too.

The verdict: To think I used to drink a lot of this way back when… it’s just too light for my tastes, like it’s watered down. There is a remarkable smoothness in the mouth, maybe like a soft(er) water?

On BeerAdvocate, it scores a grade of D- all around. On RateBeer, it scores 1.23 out of 5 and is in their 0 percentile.