Coors Light is a perfectly fine beer.
I mean, I understand the hate it gets. It doesn’t really taste like much. But that’s the point. It’s a mass appeal choice anyone (of legal drinking age) can handle. Beer is a complex subject and the wide range of styles makes it tough to find a brew that works for everyone. So while people might not be thrilled about the prospect of Coors Light, unless they’re a real jerk or a crybaby, they’re still gonna drink it.
The Coors-icle, however, is much more divisive.
The limited time offering promises to cool you down with the coldest possible approximation of Coors Light. For only $20 and change you can roll over to the brewer’s official shop and pick up a six-pack of non-alcoholic freezer pops that in no way, shape or form taste anything like the beer that inspired them.
when Coors Light sent @cwdarney and i a bag of Coorsicles for March Madness, we assumed it was because they liked us.
however, it's difficult to see the Coorsicle as anything other than an act of naked aggression toward the world pic.twitter.com/wQ6SBt0raY
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) March 17, 2023
There are several problems here, beginning with the fact a six-pack of freeze pops costs more than $20. That price is more in line with a future where barbarians wage war across the wastelands for the last drop of gasoline than 2023.
The first thing you notice when you cut open your Coors-icle — yes, you have to cut it because it’s not a normal freeze pop you can simply break open or chew the top off, creating an efficient tool for slitting the sides of your mouth — is that it smells like weed. The aroma transports you to the doorway of a dispensary. Maybe you’d think “oh wow, Coors is jumping on the trend of danky beers” but, no, this is just how the Coors-icle smells.
It is still, in fact, making my kitchen trashcan less employable 20 hours later. I can smell it, even in half-eaten melted form, from 20 feet away.
This in no way, shape or form impacts the flavor. There’s a lot of sugar involved, so you get a sweet cylinder of hard ice whose malt flavor doesn’t beer up the joint but instead leaves the whole thing tasting like tea. And at 60 calories and two ounces per pop, you wind up with something that clocks in at roughly four times more calories, by volume, as the brew it’s trying and failing to replicate.
Not tasting like Coors Light is the only thing these ice lollies have going for them. The flavor is fine. But while most freeze pops have a little aeration in their mixture, giving them a chewier, flakier texture, the Coors-icle is just a dumb block of bad-smelling ice.
It doesn’t get easier to eat as it warms up a little. It isn’t something you can crush up with your hands and slurp. It’s just the kindergarten science project of freezing orange juice and making toothpick-handled popsicles, without the sense of wonder or accomplishment.
My colleague Caroline Darney was much more optimistic with her review, even giving the quasi-dessert a 4.5 rating out of 10. Maybe you’ll like them! But my advice is not to buy the Coors-icles. Don’t even take one if offered, unless you want to smell like the parking lot of a Phish concert without any of the positive effects involved.