‘Costenita’ the word clearly Spanish for something… but what? I really don’t know… but what I do know is that it’s a very easy beer to drink (this Colombian beer), and what I also know is that it comes in a pretty small bottle. Almost like a ‘throw down’, or a ‘stubby’ in the Australian beer consumption parlance, except those things I know about (beer, mainly), is that the Colombians prefer a quick, and easy to drink beer, and it’s a good choice in a pretty warm climate.

But why is the emphasis on small, and quick and easy to drink beer? Well, the emphasis is on drinking the beer, rather than holding it in your hot hands for too long you see… and hence the nickname (certainly in Australia, and no doubt in other parts of the world) of something known as a ‘stubby’, or a ‘throw down’ — to effectively ‘throw it down your gob FAST!’ Your gob? Yeah, you know.. your throat! So, just think of something like a Solo (an Australian soft drink) that marketed itself as something that you could ‘slam down fast’, and I think the same sort of thing is going on here with this beer.

So, when it comes to a normal, everyday beer in Colombia, go Costenita. And drink it up relatively quickly, and then get another one when you’re ready… So, when I say ‘Costenita’ people should naturally say ‘Si, Senor’, or ‘Si, Senorita!’ In fact here’s a little bit of trivia for you from my trip. I was actually travelling on a group tour with mainly Americans (with a Canadian, and a Brit), and there was a bit of an inside joke about Costenita’s — and it went something like ‘Senorita, Senorita would you like a Costenita?’ And of course this doesn’t make any sense in Spanish, because you’re quite literally combining Spanish, and English words, but I guess it made sense to anyone who understood what was being said, and the inside joke of having a ‘Costenita’ rather than a Senorita… Anyway, just one of those random kind of inside jokes that we had. So everytime I think of, or see the Costenita I think of my days (one whole month to be exact) in Medellin, in Colombia, and what was an interesting, a very different time for me.

So, here comes the scoring of this relatively easy-to-drink beer. What score would I rate it out of ten? Beer is interesting in that it can be a completely normal beer, or it can be a little bit more than that. It can be full of flavour, and it can have some pretty sophisticated character, and taste profiles to it. This beer on the other hand had none of that (and that’s OK), and it was what you would call a ‘standard’ beer, or an everyday draught lager style of beer. The taste wasn’t too intense, and there weren’t a lot of heavy things going on in the bottle, or even on the nose. But when comparing this to other beers, the closest beer I could think of in similarity would probably be a Corona. Just a very easy to drink beer, and a slight bitter after taste.

It’s interesting to note the profile notes for this beer (according to other web sites), and the same things written there, are what first sprang into my mind when I first had one of these beers. And do you know the first place I ever had this beer? It was actually at a barbershop (yes, I was having a bit of ‘me’ time) where I literally was offered a ‘drink’ from the small bar they had set-up inside of this barbershop. And they offered a ‘tea of coffee’, and being the Aussie that I am immediately jumped at the idea of having a beer when they offered me one — I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to drink a beer while getting my hair played with… call me a hedonist, perhaps, but that’s just who I am. The beer was in one of their standard little bottles, and given its size it was consumed relatively quickly.

So, after telling you that little story on how I first came to know the Costenita beer, what is my final score for this beer? Given it’s versatility, and it’s ease at which one can drink, and enjoy it, and given that it has a ‘normal’ beer profile to it, I’m choosing to score this beer a Six And A Half Out Of Ten — 7/10. Why? As explained it’s profile wasn’t too complex, or sophisticated, and it was easy enough to drink, and it was served up in a little green bottle. Nothing too fancy going on here with this beer.