The Coors Brewing Company started as an American brewery and beer company in
Golden, Colorado
Golden is a home rule city that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,399 at the 2020 United States Census. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountai ...
. In 2005,
Adolph Coors Company, the
holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
that owned Coors Brewing, merged with
Molson
The Molson Brewery is a Canadian based brewery company based in Montreal which was established in 1786 by the Molson family. In 2005, Molson merged with the Adolph Coors Company to become Molson Coors.
Molson Coors maintains some of its C ...
, Inc. to become
Molson Coors
The Molson Coors Beverage Company is an American-Canadian multinational drink and brewing company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in Golden, Colorado and Montreal, Quebec.
Molson Coors was formed in 2005 ...
.
The first Coors brewery location in
Golden, Colorado
Golden is a home rule city that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,399 at the 2020 United States Census. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the base of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountai ...
is the largest single
brewing facility operating in the world.
History
Founding
In 1873,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
immigrants
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...
Adolph Coors
Adolph Herman Joseph Coors Sr. (February 4, 1847 – June 5, 1929) was a German American brewer who founded the Adolph Coors Company in Golden, Colorado, in 1873.
Early years
Adolph Hermann Joseph Kuhrs was born in Barmen in Rhenish Prus ...
and
Jacob Schueler
Jacob Schueler (died 1918) was a confectionery proprietor in the city of Denver during the early 1870s. Born in Germany's Rhineland in 1835, he immigrated to America in 1850, and arrived in Denver as one of the Pikes Peakers in 1861. He soon wen ...
from Prussia immigrated to the United States and established a
brewery
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of bee ...
in
Golden
Golden means made of, or relating to gold.
Golden may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
*Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall
* Golden Cap, Dorset
*Golden Square, Soho, London
*Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestershi ...
, Colorado, after buying a recipe for a Pilsner-style beer from a Czech immigrant William Silhan.
Coors invested $2,000 in the operation, and Schueler invested $18,000.
In 1880, Coors bought out his partner and became the sole owner of the brewery.
Prohibition
The Coors Brewing Company managed to survive
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
relatively intact. Years before the
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
went into effect nationwide, Adolph Coors with sons Adolph Jr., Grover, and Herman established the Adolph Coors Brewing and Manufacturing Company, which included
Herold Porcelain and other ventures. The brewery itself was converted into a
malted milk
Malted milk or malt powder is a powdered gruel made from a mixture of malted barley, wheat flour, and evaporated whole milk powder. The powder is used to add its distinctive flavor to beverages and other foods, but it is also used in bakin ...
and
near beer
Low-alcohol beer is beer with little or no alcohol content and aims to reproduce the taste of beer while eliminating (or at least reducing) the inebriating effects of standard alcoholic brews. Most low-alcohol beers are lagers, but there are some ...
production facility. Coors sold much of the malted milk to the
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
candy company to produce sweets. Manna, the company's non-alcoholic beer replacement, was a near-beer similar to current non-alcoholic beverages. However, Coors and his sons relied heavily on the porcelain company and a cement and real estate company to keep the Coors Brewing Company afloat. By 1933, after the end of Prohibition, the Coors brewery was one of only a handful of breweries that had survived.
All of the non-brewery assets of the Adolph Coors Company were spun off between 1989 and 1992. The descendant of the original Herold Porcelain ceramics business continues to operate as
CoorsTek
CoorsTek, Inc. is a privately owned manufacturer of technical ceramics for aerospace, automotive, chemical, electronics, medical, metallurgical, oil and gas, semiconductor and many other industries. CoorsTek headquarters and primary factories a ...
.
Products
For much of its first 100 years of existence, Coors beer was marketed solely in the
American West.
While
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
and
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
were part of the 11-state distribution area,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
and
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
were not added until 1976
(
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...
did not approve sales in grocery stores until 1985).
This gave it mystique and made it a novelty, particularly on the East Coast,
and visitors returning from the western states often brought back a case.
This iconic status was reflected in the 1977 film ''
Smokey and the Bandit
''Smokey and the Bandit'' is a 1977 American road action comedy film starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams and Mike Henry. The directorial debut of stuntman Hal Needham, the film follows ...
''. The company finally established nationwide distribution in the United States in the mid-1980s.
In 1959, Coors became the first American brewer to use an all-
aluminum
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...
two-piece
beverage can
A drink can (or beverage can) is a metal container designed to hold a fixed portion of liquid such as carbonated soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, fruit juices, teas, herbal teas, energy drinks, etc. Drink cans are made of aluminum (75% of ...
.
Also in 1959, the company abandoned
pasteurization and began to use
sterile filtration to stabilize its beer.
Coors currently operates the largest aluminum can producing plant in the world, known as the Rocky Mountain Metal Container (RMMC), in Golden. RMMC is a joint venture between Ball Metal and Coors, having been founded in 2003.
In the mid-1970s, Coors invented the litter-free push tab can,
in place of the ring pull-tab. However, consumers disliked the top and it was discontinued soon afterward.
Coors Light
Coors Light is a 4.2% (US) ABV light beer brewed in Golden, Colorado; Albany, Georgia; Elkton, Virginia; Fort Worth, Texas; Irwindale, California; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was first produced in 1978 by the Coors Brewing Company. The Ca ...
was introduced in 1978. The longtime slogan of "Silver Bullet" to describe it does not describe the beer, but rather the silver-colored can in which Coors packaged the beer. Coors once produced Coors Light in "yellow-bellied" cans like the full-strength Coors. However, when the yellow coloring was removed, and the can was left mostly silver, many dubbed the beer the "Silver Bullet".
Mergers
On July 22, 2004, the Adolph Coors Company, the holding company
A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
that owned Coors Brewing, announced it would be merging with Canadian brewing company Molson
The Molson Brewery is a Canadian based brewery company based in Montreal which was established in 1786 by the Molson family. In 2005, Molson merged with the Adolph Coors Company to become Molson Coors.
Molson Coors maintains some of its C ...
, Inc. The merger was completed February 9, 2005, with the merged company being named Molson Coors Brewing Company
The Molson Coors Beverage Company is an American-Canadian multinational drink and brewing company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in Golden, Colorado and Montreal, Quebec.
Molson Coors was formed in 2005 t ...
. Coors Brewing Company became a subsidiary of the new company. Due to the merger, Molson Coors
The Molson Coors Beverage Company is an American-Canadian multinational drink and brewing company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in Golden, Colorado and Montreal, Quebec.
Molson Coors was formed in 2005 ...
was rated the third largest producer of beer in the United States
Beer in the United States is manufactured by more than 7,000 breweries, which range in size from industry giants to brew pubs and microbreweries. The United States produced 196 million barrels () of beer in 2012, and consumes roughly of bee ...
, and the second largest brewer in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
.
Brands
Coors is responsible for promoting and distributing several alcoholic beverage brands. The most notable of those brands are Coors Banquet, Coors Light
Coors Light is a 4.2% (US) ABV light beer brewed in Golden, Colorado; Albany, Georgia; Elkton, Virginia; Fort Worth, Texas; Irwindale, California; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was first produced in 1978 by the Coors Brewing Company. The Ca ...
, Blue Moon, Keystone, and Miller
A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalent ...
.
Controversies
Labor problems
In April 1977, the brewery workers union at Coors, representing 1,472 employees, went on strike. The brewery kept operating with supervisors and 250 to 300 union members, including one union executive board member who ignored the strike. Soon after, Coors announced that it would hire replacements for the striking workers. About 700 workers quit the picket line to go back to work, and Coors replaced the remaining 500 workers, keeping the beer production process uninterrupted. In December 1978, the workers at Coors voted by greater than a two-to-one ratio to decertify the union, ending 44 years of union representation at Coors. Because the strike was more than a year old, striking workers could not vote in the election.
Labor unions organized a boycott to punish Coors for its labor practices. One tactic employed by the unions was a push for states to pass laws banning the sale of unpasteurized canned and bottled beer. Because Coors was the only major brewer at the time not pasteurizing its canned and bottled beer, such laws would hurt only Coors. Sales of Coors suffered during the decade-long labor union boycott. However, Coors claimed that declining sales were also due to an industry-wide downturn in beer sales and increased competition. To maintain production, Coors expanded its sales area from the 18 western states to which it had marketed for years to nationwide distribution. This was completed in 1991, with Indiana being the last state for the brand to appear.
The AFL–CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...
ended its boycott of Coors in August 1987, after negotiations with Pete Coors
Peter Hanson Coors (born September 20, 1946) is an American businessman and politician. He formerly served as the chairman of the Molson Coors Brewing Company and chairman of MillerCoors.
Coors was the Republican party nominee in the 2004 United S ...
, head of brewery operations. The settlement details were not divulged but were said to include an early union representation election in Colorado and the use of union workers to build the new Coors brewery in Virginia.
In 1988, the Teamsters Union
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the un ...
, which represented brewery workers at the top three U.S. beer makers at the time (Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV ( AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple ...
, Miller
A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalent ...
, and Stroh
Stroh Austria GmbH is an Austrian manufacturer of rum, especially spiced rums and high-proof rums used in warm drinks and cooking. The Stroh Rum brand is one of the best-known spirits from Austria. The name is widely used as a generic synonym f ...
), gained enough signatures to trigger a union representation election inside the Coors company. Coors workers again rejected union representation by more than a two-to-one ratio.
Minority issues
Mexican Americans charged Coors with discriminatory hiring practices following the passage of the Civil Rights Act. They launched a boycott of the company's products beginning in the late 1960s. Labor unions and gay rights activists joined the boycott, which lasted into the 1980s.
A federal lawsuit in 1975 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...
ended in a settlement with Coors agreeing not to discriminate against blacks, Hispanics, and women. In 1977, Coors was accused of firing gay and lesbian employees. From the late 1970s, Coors agreed not to discriminate against homosexuals; the first major brewery in the United States to make such a commitment.
Coors encouraged the organization of its gay and lesbian employees into the Lesbian and Gay Employee Resource (LAGER) in 1993. In May 1995, Coors became the 21st publicly traded corporation in the United States to extend employee benefits to same-sex partners. When company chairman Pete Coors
Peter Hanson Coors (born September 20, 1946) is an American businessman and politician. He formerly served as the chairman of the Molson Coors Brewing Company and chairman of MillerCoors.
Coors was the Republican party nominee in the 2004 United S ...
was criticized for the company's gay-friendly policy during his 2004 Republican primary campaign for a United States Senate seat from Colorado, he defended the policy as a basic good business practice. At the same time, critics cite the Coors family's Castle Rock Foundation's continuing history of gifts to organizations that actively promote explicitly anti-LGBT political campaigns and candidates, claiming that the Coors family's support of what critics view as anti-gay hate groups speaks more loudly than the company's multi-million dollar image campaigns, or the out gay son of William Coors, Scott Coors' public defense of his family's firm's civil rights and labor rights record.
In popular culture
The 1977 film "Smokey and the Bandit
''Smokey and the Bandit'' is a 1977 American road action comedy film starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams and Mike Henry. The directorial debut of stuntman Hal Needham, the film follows ...
" centers around an illegal shipment of Coors from Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
to Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
.
In 2014, Coors (as MillerCoors
MillerCoors was a beer brewing company in the United States. MillerCoors was formed in 2008 as a joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors to combine their brewing, marketing and sales operations in the United States. The company was acqui ...
) entered a contract with FX Networks
FX Networks, LLC, is a company consisting of a network of cable channels plus a production company and a subsidiary of the Disney General Entertainment Content segment of The Walt Disney Company. Originally a part of 21st Century Fox, the compan ...
, producer of shows including ''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'' is an American sitcom created by Rob McElhenney and developed by McElhenney and Glenn Howerton that premiered on August 4, 2005 on FX and later FXX beginning with the ninth season in 2013. It stars Char ...
''. Since season six of the show all beer in Paddy's Pub is Coors and the bar has Coors signs and logos scattered throughout it.
See also
* Adolph Coors Company
* Coors Light
Coors Light is a 4.2% (US) ABV light beer brewed in Golden, Colorado; Albany, Georgia; Elkton, Virginia; Fort Worth, Texas; Irwindale, California; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was first produced in 1978 by the Coors Brewing Company. The Ca ...
* Molson Coors Beverage Company
The Molson Coors Beverage Company is an American-Canadian multinational drink and brewing company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in Golden, Colorado and Montreal, Quebec.
Molson Coors was formed in 2005 t ...
References
Bibliography
* Baum, Dan. "Citizen Coors: A Grand Family Saga of Business, Politics, and Beer". New York: HarperCollins, 2000.
External links
Coors Light
MillerCoors
USA)
{{Authority control
Beer brewing companies based in Colorado
Companies based in Golden, Colorado
Food and drink companies established in 1873
The Heritage Foundation
Molson Coors Beverage Company
Rockingham County, Virginia