Miscellaneous: Beverage Coors Original, desktop wallpaper nr. 10230

History

In 1873 (139 years ago), German immigrants Adolph Coors and Jacob Schueler, a very successful Denver businessman, established a brewery in Golden, Colorado. Coors invested $2,000 in the operation to Schueler's investment of $18,000. In 1880 (132 years ago), Coors bought out his partner in "The Golden Brewery". The beer is said to take its flavor from the pure water of the Rocky Mountains.

In 1916 (96 years ago), Colorado went dry with Prohibition. However, years before the Volstead Act went into effect nationwide, Adolph Coors with his sons Adolph Jr. and Grover and Herman had established the Adolph Coors Brewing and Manufacturing Company, which included the Herold Porcelain and other ventures. The brewery was converted into a malted milk and near beer venture. Coors sold much of the malted milk to the Mars candy company for the production of confection. Manna was a "near beer" which is like the non-alcoholic beverages of today. Coors relied on the porcelain company as well as a cement and real estate company to survive. In 1933 (79 years ago), Coors was one of only a handful of breweries that survived Prohibition. Grover was responsible for the malted milk operation and Herman soon left Golden for Inglewood, California to open the unrelated H.F. Coors Porcelain Company. Grover later was a sales official in the California region for the brewery. Non-brewery assets of the Adolph Coors Company were spun off between 1989 (23 years ago) and 1992; the descendant of the original Herold Porcelain ceramics business continues to operate as CoorsTek.

According to the Coors website, Coors became the first American brewer to use an all-aluminum two-piece beverage can in 1959 (53 years ago). Coors currently operates the largest aluminum can producing plant in the world in Golden Colorado, known as the Rocky Mountain Metal Container. RMMC is a joint venture between Ball Metal and Coors (2003-current). Bill Coors is the "Father of the Aluminum Beer Can." Coors invented the pollution free push tab can in the 1970s, however the consumer disliked the top and it was discontinued soon after. The long and current slogan of "Silver Bullet" to describe Coors Light is not for the beer, it is for the silver colored can the beer is packaged in. Coors Light was once produced in the yellow bellied cans like Coors Banquet; however, when the yellow was removed and the can was mostly silver, many dubbed the beer as "The Silver Bullet."

Many of Coors' slogans, including "Brewed With Rocky Mountain Spring Water," "America's Fine Light Beer," and "Banquet," are from the Post World War Two era. Currently Coors Banquet, the original Coors beer, is only brewed in Golden. Coors Light is the number one selling beer in the Molson-Coors profile and is a huge factor to the MillerCoors joint venture.

For much of its history, Coors beer was a regional product mostly confined to the American west by legal restrictions. This made it a novelty on the east coast, and visitors returning from visits to the western states often made a point of bringing back a case. This iconic status was reflected in pop culture: in 1977 (35 years ago) the movie Smokey and the Bandit centered on an "illegal" shipment of Coors from Texas to Georgia. Boston Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski was such a big Coors fan that when he loaded up the team plane with multiple cases of Coors for the return trip to the East Coast, some of his teammates jokingly wondered if the plane would be able to successfully take off. The company finally established nationwide distribution in the U.S. in the early 1990 (22 years ago).

In 2003 (9 years ago), Coors was the third largest producer of beer in the United States, and the second largest brewer in the United Kingdom through its subsidiary, Coors Brewers Limited. There it controls the UK's most popular brew, Carling, as the result of that brand's merger with Canadian brewer Molson in 1989 (23 years ago).

On 22 Jul. 2004 (8 years ago) the company announced it would be merging with Molson. The merger was completed 9 Feb. 2005 (7 years ago) and the merged company is called Molson Coors Brewing Company. In Aug. 2004 (8 years ago), Coors Brewing Company announced plans to add brewing capacity to the Shenandoah beer packaging facility in Elkton, Virginia, by early 2007 (5 years ago). Coors officials stated that this would "bring brewing capacity much closer to our important East Coast markets and distributors."

The Coors family members have played a prominent role in American politics and public policy, supporting many conservative causes, including providing a $250,000 grant in 1973 (39 years ago) to found The Heritage Foundation, one of the United States's most influential conservative public policy research institutes, and, via its parent company, the right-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute. Chairman Pete Coors ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from Colorado in 2004 (8 years ago) on the Republican ticket.