
Corona is the highest selling imported beer in America and has been since 1997. That is something I have never been able to wrap my head around. In all my year of writing about beer, I have never seen a single compelling reason to consume Corona. Yet every time you’re at a bar that isn’t Irish or college themed, Coronas are fucking everywhere.
What is a Corona in terms of beer? It’s a pale lager. I’ve never heard of a pale lager before, that just sounds like marketing-doubletalk for watered down lager. I say this because pale ales are super flavorful and Corona tastes like you dropped your beer into water and kept drinking it. I think that’s what the brand wants you to think.
Why? If you remember our discussion of the marketing strategies that national beer brands like Budweiser and Miller-Coors use to sell their bland beer - you’ll recall that they each have a unique selling point. And Corona’s is that you drink it at the beach. People are supposed to drink a Corona and “find their beach”. What’s the problem with that? I’ll tell you, the beaches are too damn crowded because the United States is mostly not beaches.
Wait, no that’s not the problem I meant.
The real problem is they trick the consumer into thinking that all a Corona is missing is a lime. Corona already tastes like Bud Light Platinum and water, why not knock it down to a DIY Bud Light Lime? This brings me to the crux of my argument against Corona. Everybody likes limes, their presence improves the flavor of many things - all of them associated with beaches and summertime.
Adding a lime to a Corona is like a lady wearing a weave. Artificially supplementing a lack of an essential quality (taste and hair respectively). And if that weren’t bad enough, Corona’s don’t even come in 12 oz bottles. They are 333 mL or 11.2 oz in the Manly English System. So you’re shelling out craft beer money for a subpar product that doesn’t even come in the minimum acceptable serving size. That’s horse shit. And don't even get me started on Coronaritas.
Smigoversen reads the words and drinks the beers. He twitters here.