I haven’t really had a Killian’s Irish Red since the summer of 1984.

I remember this quite clearly, because I remember everything about that summer clearly. I was a young broke bohemian trying to be a “Writer” in Berkeley, California, and I was head over heels in love with a girl named Karla who lived in San Francisco. That was the year I sold all my expensive, professional cameras just to have money to burn with this girl.

Also, it seems, Killian’s Irish Red was the beer to drink that summer. At least, it was in Berkeley and San Francisco.

I didn’t really care for it, but I was always too broke to buy what I really wanted, and besides all my friends liked it, and it was always around. So I drank it. I mean, at least it wasn’t Budweiser.

So, skip ahead to year 2007. The future. And I am in a luxury suite in an undisclosed northern city, in the middle of a three week assignment. I am now a writer (dropped the capital “W” from it) and here I am, once again, sitting with an open bottle of Killian’s Irish Red in front of me.

I twist off the cap. Take a sniff. Yes, it smells dimly of beer. There’s beer in the bottle somewhere.

Not expecting much, I take a swig.

Well! I’ll be darned. Either this beer has improved over the last 23 years or my tastes have changed. It’s flavorful, and I’m smiling.

For one, it’s hoppy … much more so than you’d expect from a mass produced brew. It makes me picture a bunch of hops dressed as little warriors dancing around on my tongue and poking at it with sharp sticks. “Hops! Hops! We’re hops!” Yes, you’re hops, I noticed. And I keep noticing it because the maltiness is so pale it has problems competing. Another taste swimming around in this beer, one that took me most of the bottle to pin down, is a kind of corn cereal note, not unpleasant … in fact, fairly sweet.

The beer makes a clean finish and leaves me wanting another one. It’s good. Not something to curl my toes and roll my eyes back in ecstasy, but no one — especially me — would really expect that from something bottled by the people who make Coors. I’m simply pleased that it didn’t make me retch.

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