Killians Red is a pretty bad example of an Irish Red ale. It's a mass produced reddish BMC type beer. That said, kudos to you for having the better beer. It's a sign of a skilled brewer who can brew a beer as clean as a mass produced b eer!
I agree about the present state of Killian's Red...not much to write home about.
However, when it was first introduced it was quite good (and was marketed and labeled as an "ale", and definitely tasted like one in character).
It was actually
quite good, and showed what the Coors brewers were really capable of.
But after a couple of years when it was rebranded as a lager and reformulated a few times, it seems that it was stripped of everything that made it at least stand out a bit.
The only things left now are the name and the color.
On a side note...I was recently given a bottle of Killian's Stout...and it was not bad at all.
Predictably, it gets dismissed by the über geeks because 1) it is restrained and not 'over the top' (unlike many American stouts) and 2) because it is a Miller-Coors product.
I don't drink much store bought beer, but I'd add the GK stout to my short list.
But I still prefer homebrew over
any commercial beer.