colorado Archives - Sweet Potato Bites

I remember the first time I tried a Coors Light. I was a freshman in college, and my friend and I decided to try the infamous “silver bullet,” even though we both declared that we hated beer. We were handed cans with the Coors Light name emblazoned across the side, took one sip, and promptly spit it out. After that night, I made it a point to avoid Coors Light at all costs with the exception of a few incidents where Coors may have been poured into my red solo cup and I was none the wiser.

Now I’m not a beer snob by any means, but I prefer to only drink craft brews, with Deschutes, Full Sail, Russian River and Smuttynose being some of my faves. I love supporting local brews and love smaller breweries that use high quality ingredients instead of just creating a generic flavor that can be shipped out to the masses. And since the Englishman is quite the beer connoisseur, I know he agrees with me on that one.

But back to Coors. Coors Brewing Company is the largest single brewery facility in the world and happens to be headquartered in Golden, Colorado, which isn’t too far from Denver, which was where we were staying. Even though I’m not a big fan of Coors, I was intrigued to see how this behemoth of a brewery operated, so my parents, the Englishman, and I piled into the car and drove down to Golden for a brewery tour.

When we arrived at the brewery, I was impressed to find out that both the tour and the parking were free (a rarity these days). We boarded a small shuttle and were taken on a brief tour of downtown Golden before being dropped off at the tour entrance. The brewery tour was self-guided, and you were given a headset if you wanted an audio guide throughout the tour. The Englishman and my parents took this very seriously.

I will say that the tour was quite informative and eye opening. One of the rooms we walked in had GIANT copper brew kettles where you could smell the malt and hops being processed.

Mid-way through the tour we got to sample a “shot” of beer, and were given two options: Coors Light or Coors Banquet. Naturally I avoided the Coors Light and went for the Coors Banquet.

The Coors Banquet was alright, nothing earth shattering, but it was nice and cold which I appreciated.

The tour ended with a view of the distribution room where you could see cases of beer whizzing by on conveyor belts. The distribution room was quite large and it was amazing to see just how much beer was produced in this brewery on any given afternoon.

Our tour ended, and we were taken downstairs to the tasting room where we could get up to 3 pint glasses of beer for free (well played Coors). I decided to go with a Blue Moon hefeweizen with a slice of orange. Definitely not my favorite hefeweizen, but it did the trick.

Even though I’m not going to run out and buy Coors beer anytime soon, I did find the tour interesting and was pretty impressed at how much beer is produced in that facility. Plus, visiting one of the biggest breweries in the world isn’t anything to sneeze at.