Comments on: Beer In Ads #40: Coors’ Rocky Mountain Spring Water

By: Loraine

Loraine — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:59:43 +0000

So does Coors now have preservatives and is it pasturized?

By: Mike Pierce

Mike Pierce — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:39:36 +0000

I worked at a Coors distributor for several years — and yes they were very obsessed with cold storage. This was due to the fact that they were the only mega brewer who did not pasteurize their beer, so distributors had to set up expensive cold storage units. We had a rail spur at the warehouse; the beer came in via refrigerated rail cars. Twice each year the brewery would come out and audit the market and if they found old beer it was a big deal. Joe Morgan (the ex baseball star) had a Coors distributorship in the Bay Area and after failing a couple of these audits it was taken away from him. So — not much taste but the Coors family was very rigorous about maintaining freshness.

The ads were great also because they would not depict any humans in them (until the early 80′s I think); always a glass of beer and a pristine nature setting, usually with some water and/or snow in them. Bill Coors was fond of saying they “would never put people in their ads”…

As for the ad where they showed the warm stored beer, it was Mark Harmon (the Coors spokesman) who appeared in it, not Mr. Coors. It did cause quite a stir – distributors were angry as hornets over it! They were already worked up because not long before Coors had brought out the “easy open can” that had the tabs you pressed into the can. Customers were cutting their fingers and thumbs all the time and the distributors phones rang off the hook with pissed off bloody customers. Bill Coors actually got up in front of his distributors at a meeting a showed how easy it was to open with golf ball! My former boss then asked Bill Coors if he expected all their customers to carry golf balls in their pockets. Bill was furious at this remark. It was, frankly, rather comical.

Also Mr. Nuts – Coors and Molson did merge a few years back. They are joined together across the globe. MillerCoors (as the company is known in the US) is a distribution agreement between the two companies – but only for the American market. Outside the US they are not affiliated. They did this out of necessity to have more economy of scale to compete with Anheuser-Busch. My guess is that Coors probably regrets this marriage now.

By: dbrewing

dbrewing — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:31:46 +0000

Them why does Coors now come in Miller kegs?
http://www.millercoors.com/our-beers/great-beer.aspx

By: Mr. Nuts

Mr. Nuts — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:14:15 +0000

Umm, Coors is part of MolsonCoors. Has nothing to do with SABMiller.

Carry on…

By: dbrewing

dbrewing — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:50:22 +0000

Now just another brand in the SABMiller stable.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:36:44 +0000

One of the stories I have read (probably in either
Ambitious Brew or Beer Blast) is that Coors was very strict about refigeration at its distributors and retaiers. This required lots of new investment in refrigerated storage for those that wanted to sell Coors. After all this Coors then made a TV commercial that featured Mr. Coors standing next to a stack of unrefrigerated beer in an end cap display at a grocery store. So yeah, they pissed off a lot of their distribution chain with that one.

By: Chipper Dave Butler

Chipper Dave Butler — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:34:17 +0000

You graduated HS in ’77? Same here! I remember friends bringing back stashes of Coors from Colorado to Michigan where I grew up. Now I live in Colorado and never touch that brand any more. Funny how life changes eh? Cheers to the class of ’77 – was a good year to get out of high school.

By: Jess Kidden

Jess Kidden — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:36:27 +0000

Coors, at the time, was still pretty paranoid about refrigerating their non-pasteurized “microfiltered/sterile filled” beer. They required refrigerated trucks and warehouses for all their distributors and “encouraged” retailers to only store Coors in the cooler.

Even tho’ they were among the pioneering brewers to do the work on the process (including the related development of the aluminum beer can), they seemed to have been less trustful of it. Few, if any, of the many “real draft in can” beers that came along later in the mid-1960′s suggested/required refrigeration at all times). They also had one of the shortest “pull date” shelf life periods in the industry at the time (2 months, IIRC). Both requirements probably slowed their march East until saner (or maybe just more ambitious?) heads prevailed in Golden.