The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world’s fifth-largest brewing company, the 
Molson Coors Brewing Company. According to the Molson-Coors website, the division is the third-largest brewer in the U.S. The brewery in Golden, Colorado is the world’s largest on a single site.
In 1873, German immigrants Adolph Coors and Jacob Schueler, a 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, Coors bought out his partner in “The Golden Brewery”. It is said to take its flavor from the pure water of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1916, 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, 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 H.F. Coors Porcelain Company. H.F. Coors’ company is not connected with the beer or other Coors-related corporations. Grover later was a sales official in the California region for the brewery.
According to the Coors website, in 1959, Coors became the first American brewer to come in an all-aluminum two-piece beverage can. Coors currently operates the largest aluminum can producing plant in the World in Golden, 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 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 1990s.
This Coors beer tin sign would make a great gift for anybody.
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