No Entiendo Nada
A Brief Ode to Medalla Light, Puerto Rico’s Finest Premium Light Beer
February 16, 2018
If one was forced to make an educated presumption, one might presume that Puerto Rico’s booze of choice is rum. And one who presumes such might be—actually, one is probably right, it is. It’s probably rum. One could definitely presume it’s rum.
But in my first month on the island, few domestic products have brought me as much comfort as Medalla Light, Puerto Rico’s beer of choice. Medalla is ubiquitous here, with its golden 10-oz. bottles and cans omnipresent in grocery stores, restaurants, and on the sidewalk outside my apartment on most mornings. I literally cannot walk outside without tripping over Medalla.
Medalla’s history, like seemingly everything else in Puerto Rico right now, is indelibly connected to the production of electricity. In 1910, a businessman by the name of Don Ramón Valdés capitalized on the needs of a quickly modernizing economy by founding the Mayagüez Light, Power and Ice Company. Valdés’ electric utility company was a precursor to PREPA, the publicly-run (for now) utility company that has provided electricity (every once in a while) to the Commonwealth since 1941.
Valdés’ son Alfonso Valdés Cobián further expanded the family’s business enterprises: he helped spur the aggressive growth of his father’s company, capitalized on his influence by serving in the Puerto Rican legislature, and founded los Indios de Mayagüez, one of Puerto Rico’s most successful baseball franchises.
But Valdés Cobián did something even more important than start a baseball team. On some sweltering Puerto Rican afternoon, one could baselessly presume, Alfonso sat overlooking La Ciudad de Las Aguas Puras—or “the city of pure waters” as Mayagüez is known—and watched the serene, freshwater ripples (back then, anyway) of the Yagüez River pass through town. One might presume, without any foundation of factual knowledge, that a thought occurred to the Puerto Rican industrialist in that moment: what if that water was beer instead? Thus, Valdés Cobián started his own brewery, Cervecera de Puerto Rico, in 1937.
The company has stayed in the Valdés family ever since, producing multiple popular concoctions such as Magna, Silver Key Light, and Malta India, a barley-based, non-alcoholic soft drink. But the brewery’s masterwork is undoubtedly Medalla Light, a crisp, refreshing pale lager.
For me, Medalla’s appeal lies in its simplicity. Light in calories and low in ABV (4.2 percent, to be exact), Medalla is a satisfactory refreshment in times of heat and pressure. It is the WD-40 to the overwound gears and screws of life, an elegant elixir that simultaneously suggests and fosters finesse. Medalla Light’s strength, above all else, is its softness.
As far as beer goes, I choose to drink Medalla almost exclusively these days. Gone are my cravings for hoppy craft IPAs and cleverly-named microbrews. All along I had been taken in by those ornate handiworks of thought and purpose, as though beer is an artisan expression meant for interpretation and conscientious consumption. Occasionally that might be favorable, but Medalla has reminded me of one of beer’s finer, less complicated purposes: to slow the brain down.