Well folks, I think I’m in trouble. Fresh off my scathing review of Miller Fortune, I’m about to give the same treatment to the latest product from the Miller-Coors Empire: Coors Light Summer Brew. With this streak running, it may not be long before the folks at SAB Miller take a contract out on me. OK, probably not, but just in case I’ll hedge my bets and explain a bit below.

It might be easy to dismiss my opinions on such brews as the two mentioned above. “Hey Bruguru!” you might say, “You drink all those weird beers, why do you know about megabrews?” A lot actually, and there are even a few I have rated highly over the years. I always try new products from the big brewers; why wouldn’t I? I am all for giving them a chance, and each time I see something new I hope it will be a good one. To be fair, Miller Coors does brew lots of great beer under their Leinenkugel and Blue Moon labels after all.

Coors Light Summer Brew, however, is not great beer, or even good beer in my opinion. In fact, it’s hardly beer at all at least in flavor. Coors Light Summer Brew is called on the label a “Citrus Radler”, “Lager with natural citrus flavors”. Technically, a radler is a German drink consisting of a blend of lemon soda and lager. The Irish do the same thing and call it a shandy.

My first problem with Coors Light Summer Brew is the flavor, so let’s pour it out and try it, shall we?

I poured my can of Coors Light Summer Brew into my prized Coors Eisbock glass (that was a good beer folks). The head formation was spritzy and short-lived, so much so in fact that I could hardly snap off a photo before it died. Taking a sip here, there’s just no beer taste, really tastes like watered down orange juice.

There is some citrus orange in the nose and palate but too watery to be worth anything for me. There’s a spritzy seltzer water finish too, leaving the impression more of soda than beer, but this doesn’t even have as much flavor as an orange soda might.

Coors does not seem to be forthcoming about alcohol content, but they do say that the beer has 100 calories per can. Keep in mind, though, that these are 10-ounce cans, so that would be 120 calories per 12-ounce serving equivalent of say, Coors Light, which has 102 calories. Coors Light Summer Brew runs $9.99 for a 12-pack, but that’s again really only a ten-pack equivalent of 12 ounce cans.

Folks, this is not a beer I would buy again. If you want a radler, make your own with a good lager and Sprite or Diet Sprite mixed in equal parts. There are also some very good pre-mixed ones out there, like Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, Samuel Adams Porch Rocker, and Curious Traveler.

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