“I couldn’t believe it was true…no I couldn’t believe it was true.”
Until I saw for my own eyes the bright blue Blue Moon neon sign in the tap room of the Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado. I unashamedly call Coors my favorite of the mega brewers, simply because of the family’s commitment to Colorado. That always made sense to me, even if the details aren’t completely golden. Chalk it up to nostalgia.
But it seemed like blasphemy when I found out a few years ago that Blue Moon, my favorite “craft” beer, had originally been the Bellyslide Belgian White crafted in the Sandlot Brewery, the craft-y skunkworks of Molson Coors (at the time) parked at Coors Field baseball stadium (hence the brewery’s name). The story is from Coors that they’ve held its production separate, up in Montreal at the Molson Brewery…so it doesn’t really come out of the same factory that still cranks out so much Coors Light. I know, I drank half of that beer-flavored mineral water back in college. It’s still better than its closest competitors.
Last time I was in Golden, we took another tour of that original Coors plant, and in the tap room made a toast with our tasters…and though the Belgian-by-way-of-Colorado brew tasted the same, it didn’t. Because the Blue Moons I want to have are those shared with a friend on a patio in Georgia on a close summer night, or with Highlanders playing bagpiped songs of time passing for a friend’s 50th birthday. That’s my Blue Moon, a step up from its frothy cousin that I cheered with in my younger years.
And now I can get a Blue Moon anywhere Coors products are sold…or move on to a more worthy trigo, weiss, witbeer, or true Belgian beer from thousands of independent brewers out there in the world.
-
- There’s something beautiful about a Blue Moon on a Georgia patio. Sweet Water next!
-
- Cheers! Drinking up under the Blue Moon neon at Coors brewery. When in Golden…
-
- Golden can be about mountains, or beer, or some timeless bagpiping highlanders. Men in skirts.