Coors Brewery Tour in Golden, Colorado

Remember that my new book will be out SOON (probably next week, fingers crossed) on Amazon! A Travel for Taste: AppSnax contains 20 delicious recipes for appetizers, snacks and small plates. I tested, retested and photographed each one and compiled them into a beautiful cookbook. The price: only $14.99!

I make these recipes often for guests and parties and potlucks, or for just watching TV at home. I have published some of the recipes here on the blog, but most are brand new releases. Most of them are quick, and they are all easy and delicious!

More details about the book:

  • 58 pages
  • 10 no-cook/no-bake recipes
  • 10 cooked/baked recipes
  • Full-color photos of each finished dish
  • Appendix with extra complementary recipes
  • Alphabetical Index with cross-references
  • “Make-ahead” tags for easy planning
  • Notes section for each recipe with variations and tips to make things easy
  • Metric conversions of ingredient amounts and cooking temperatures

This book makes a great gift for the cook on your gift list – or for YOU! Subscribers will get first crack at ordering the book when it’s ready, and possibly a discount if I can figure out how to do that – so sign up today!

This week, I bring you the Coors Brewery Tour in Golden, Colorado. It’s a free tour of the world-famous beer producer. Coors, well, technically, Molson Coors now, was founded way back in 1873 by German immigrant Adolph Coors. It’s the world’s largest single brewery facility today, though they have many other locations around the country.

I’d done the tour back in the 90s, and it has changed considerably. Back then, the tour guide led you through the actual factory. This time around the tour was more sequestered from the actual factory workings, but they had built up some beautiful displays along the new corridors from which you can see the factory procedures through well-placed windows.

Our tour guide:

For those of you old enough, they even have a Smokey and the Bandit display in the lobby now:

You can also see the malt roasting room:

Some labs:

Brewing vats:

And lots of machines and assembly lines:

Action shot:

Finally, at the end of the tour, the doorway we were all waiting for: the lounge.

Here, you get three free beers. Back in the 90s, you only got one. Progress!

Choose three from the menu in the attractive and very busy bar area:

My favorite photo of the tour:

At the shuttle bus stop after the tour (and the free beers) we could see the giant white “M” on the mountain in the distance. It’s been there since about 1907; it’s the emblem for the local Colorado School of Mines, which offers bachelors degrees in metallurgy, engineering and other areas related to mining. Colorado is all about the geology.

And the white “M”? Well, each year all the freshmen bring a 10-pound rock from their hometown. One weekend near the beginning of the school year, they paint all the rocks white and carry them up the mountain on a Saturday morning. They add all the rocks to the “M”, which keeps it fresh and very big. It’s even lit up at night with LEDs. I really like that for a college tradition.

Anyway, as I said before, the Coors tour is free. You just show up at the tour bus parking lot, board the next available shuttle bus and ride to the brewery for the tour. (Back in the 90s, we rolled right up to the front door and walked in, but that’s changed.) At times, like weekends and summer, it can be quite crowded, and, thus, there’s a wait. But if you go early, especially on a weekday, you can get right in.

Photo for No Apparent Reason: