This Is My Blood: Corona Familiar

The past couple years I've noticed a pronounced sense of melancholy around my birthday. I know this isn't a particularly unique feeling, and it's not a mystery as to why I feel it—one's birthday marks another milestone on that slow march toward death. But this year, the feeling was particularly pronounced. Not sure why. Probably had to do with that whole thing that's happened that we've already talked about enough this year so I'll spare you. It was a normal day, basically, full of the normal workplace drudgery and droll train ride to and from and comforting cacophony of two rambunctious youngins.

For the most part. There was my favorite cheesesteak and birthday cake and a 2.5-year-old singing "happy birthday" as best she could and hanging outside with that same 2.5yo while her Mom Mom and Grandpop slow down slightly and throw a birthday card out the window (someone from a COVID-positive household was at their Thanksgiving dinner, you see) and keeping the TV off for once while the wife and I spend the night drinking wine and talking about the universe.

It was special because the people in my life made it special, despite the world doing its best to push back and make it crushingly ordinary. In other words—that slow march toward death didn't seem too accelerated because of the friends and family I surround myself with and am thankful for.

I'm circling around to talking about today's beer, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to make the transition without it landing flatly, so let's just rip the band aid off: thematically, drinking a Corona Familiar was appropriate for such a day, because it too was special within the context of a crushing normality.

Consider: Corona Familiar is more than in the same ballpark as the other Corona beers (Extra, Light), it's pretty much in the same dugout. A normal adjunct lager that goes really well with salty junk dinner food. But also consider: Familiar has a slightly fuller malt, giving the beer an extra kick of cereal-like sweetness, but not overwhelmingly so. It's golden-yellow to Corona Light's bright-yellow. And best of all, the opaque brown bottle solves the worst problem with the other Coronas—it's less likely to get skunked and have that musty stink to it. True enough, Familiar was fresh and satisfying.

Like we discussed yesterday, I'm getting tired of all the fancy shit, so to have a so-described "crushingly normal" beer was a real treat today. The beer, the food, the family, the well-wishing texts, everything worked together to make me feel about as special as I could on this crushingly normal day.

NOTES

BEER: Corona Familiar

STYLE: Adjunct Lager

ABV: 4.8%

BREWED BY: Grupo Modelo S.A. de C.V.

LOCATION: Mexico City, Mexico

PURCHASED AT: Chase's

PAIRED WITH: Wit' or Witowski, birthday cake

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

 

BEER COUNT: 506 (one beer, two glasses of cab sauv Bota Box wine)