Yes... this is from the utterly ridiculous media campaign for this tin cylinder of vile much.

Yes… this is from the utterly ridiculous media campaign for this tin cylinder of vile just-fizzy muck.

“New Coors Altitude is a contemporary lager brewed to 6.4% with a clean, smooth taste one has come to expect from Coors. The easy-drinking lager represents a strong expression of the other side of Coors, while maintaining the brewer’s exceptional standard of quality. It’s the perfect balance of strength & simplicity – primed for unforgettable nights.”

What a load of utter cobblers.

Coors Altitude “Contemporary Lager” (6.4% alcohol by volume)
$10.95 for 4 x 473ml tin cans with screw off caps

Whoever took on the design/marketing/promotion of this piss-poor swill was obviously on some sort of low-grade coke-induced 90’s trip. The packaging is just simply awful. It looks like a can of that Axe/Lynx body spray stuff that is only used by 13 – 15 year old boys who don’t know any better and sad man-children with no olfactory sense (or sense of shame) whatsoever. Perhaps this could be their target demographic?

The beer pours a sickly pale urine yellow with seriously lo-fi carbonation, leaving virtually no lacing whatsoever. It looks filtered beyond belief, which isn’t surprising considering it comes from Molson Coors.

The nose is uninteresting in the extreme, as in it smells just like Coors/Budweiser/Labatt Blue/the new Canadian-brewed Löwenbräu/Molson Canadian et al. … so it basically has the identical profile to those all of those other industrially produced generic, commodity beers.

Molson Coors scientists have obviously brewed Altitude to offend as few people as possible, and therefore simultaneously offending anyone who takes any pleasure whatsoever from the bouquet and or taste of a decent beer.

In the mouth this beer gives about the same amount of pleasure as on the nose. It’s simply terrible.

There’s a vague stale corn mustiness going on in there, with basically no hop character whatsoever. Coming from Scotland I do like my beers with a bit of a malty profile, but here all I find is a nasty malt element that feels like filler on the mid-palate.

I’m also guessing that this abomination is sugar-fortified… and this makes the final product quite sickly. It’s just like a can of really crap, cheap beer with three tablespoons of sugar in there. when it warms up it just gets worse and worse, the higher alcohol really showing hot on the palate.

Zero apples out of a possible five.

AVOID.

Post script: After being accused of being a beer snob I went into my garbage and retrieved the three full tins of Altitude, deciding to give this beer a second chance. I consumed all three of them in no time (I was helluva thirsty) and the next morning was encumbered with one of the most chemical-tasting hangovers I have ever experienced. It was almost akin to having a post cocaine nasal-throat drip. Disgusting.


Jamie Drummond

Edinburgh-born/Toronto-based Sommelier, consultant, writer, judge, and educator Jamie Drummond is the Director of Programs/Editor of Good Food Revolution… And he threw the rest of that four-pack in the garbage. Awful.