Adolph Coors: The German Immigrant Who Brought Us Banquet Beer

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Head to roku.com or your favorite retailer to deck out your dorm. And we return to our American stories and up next a story from Pete Kors on Adolph Kors. Take it away, Pete. Well, so Adolph was born somewhere in the 1840s in a little place called Barman on Wippertal in Germany and kind of an interesting story. People say the C-O-O-R-S name is kind of unusual for a German name. His birth certificate he was signed in as Kors K-O-R-S which is very German and his father actually signed K-O-H-R-S and by the time his sister was born about eight or ten years later there was a Dutch magistrate who brought the double O from their language and it became C-O-O-R-S. His father was a flour miller and died when he was 10.

He had been a princess three times in order to survive. Once as a flour miller with his father's trade, once as a printer book finder and those are three years in denture ships which as I understand in those days that meant you got room and board and that's about it and then the third one in brewing. We don't know the details of how or why he decided to leave Germany. He was always very proud of his German heritage but he stowed away on a ship, landed in Baltimore, had no papers, had no money, had no was able to work off his passage. As soon as he did he started working his way across the country and I guess it's a you know a typical great American story of coming to a land with opportunity and freedom but with no safety nets. I mean you came here you were on your own as so many pioneers did after this country became free from the monarchical rule of England and he worked on the Erie Barge Canal as we understand it. He worked at a brewery in Naperville, Illinois, the Stenger Brewery, became general manager of the brewery there, left, came further west, ended up in Denver, started a business importing cask wine from California and taking it by pack horse up to the mining towns between Idaho Springs, Georgetown, Central City, Blackhawk and selling them and that's how he made a living and then I guess some of his German friends in Denver said well you know how to brew beer we could use a good brewery, joined up with a financial partner.

I think he invested about ten thousand dollars in 11 acres in golden Colorado where he had found a source of spring water. The brewery was incorporated in 1873, three years before Colorado statehood. His partner lasted about eight years and decided the beer business wasn't going anywhere and Adolph turned into a sole proprietorship and he really had no formal education but he had he had a practical education and I think that was probably true for most immigrants at that time. They came with their skills, with their ability to do hard labor and it wasn't easy. I'm sure it wasn't easy and as I look at some of the pictures that we have in the archives of the brewery workers sitting around the tanks and the kegs it's pretty obvious that they were a pretty rough crew.

You know he struggled but the business was growing. In those days there were over 20 breweries in Colorado. Most of the mining towns had their own breweries. We would equate to craft breweries today, boutique breweries.

If you hike throughout Colorado and pay attention a lot of these old abandoned mining towns and mining areas you'll find hops growing. Hops growing wild and he literally started by you know hauling beer by backhors and then he began to buy properties and pre-prohibition. He sold beer by having like craft breweries doing today by having saloons and bars. We have a listing actually 19, I think the first year of taxes were 1915 and he did a full accounting of all his properties in Denver and in southern Colorado and around the region. Prohibition changed all that and brewers could no longer own retail liquor saloons and bars. Another interesting story about Adolph. He needed to double the capacity of his brewery because they were doing quite well and growing and I believe it was 1884.

I can't remember for sure the date. He had just completed the new facilities and a flood came down Clear Creek and wiped out his new brewery and he had borrowed money from the banks in Denver to build that and of course beer sales primarily grow in the summertime and so here his brewery in the spring has wiped out all of his inventory. Went back to the banks and said look if you'll double down I'll rebuild and I'll pay it off and he did but he never borrowed another dime. He decided that that was not a good way to proceed so really the company didn't ever borrow money until about the late 1880s. We'd been growing and we needed the additional capital to to expand the brewery so people often people often ask why in the world in the 60s and 70s when the company was growing so fast were you only in 11 states and the simple answer is we were every dime that we had was invested back into the company because we had no debt we couldn't borrow money to grow any faster so that's in the mid 70s when competition from the east particularly Anheuser-Busch came more west we began to expand our territory and people used to say it had something to do with quality and to a certain degree it did in 11 states we could have pretty good control of quality but the real reason is we needed to in order to become a competitor with the big guys and keep them from burying us we expanded territory the rest I guess as they say is history. A couple of funny stories after prohibition back in those days a banquet was a big deal you didn't have fast foods restaurants you didn't have people on there you know going out to clubs and I mean if you had a banquet that was a big deal and my grandfather said to the we had no marketing department per se in those days he said well I think we ought to well this is this is a beer that's good enough for a banquet and so that's where a banquet came from and the other other funny story you know now we have the Coors Banquet has the stubby bottles and it's a it's a retro it goes back to the early days after prohibition when we had stubby bottles and I asked my uncle one time I don't know if this is a true story or not I asked my uncle I asked my uncle one time why did we why did we go to Longnecks he said well he said the cowboys when they go dancing would like to would put their bottles in the back pocket so they could dance and the beer would slosh out and so that's how Longnecks got started now I don't know if that's true accurate or not but that's that's why everybody went everybody went to Longnecks and stuff everybody had pretty much had stubbies back in the early days after prohibition so now we've gone back to the I guess they put their beers down when they go dance I don't know but anyway and a special thanks to Monty and to Alex for the storytelling and putting that story together so beautifully and a special thanks to Pete Coors and what a story he had to tell about Adolf Coors born in Germany he became an apprentice and even talked about indentureships this is back when young people would work for room and board and that was it and my goodness by 1873 having come to America moved all the way out to the west and learned not by formal education but by practical education that is experience forged and formed a company that was incorporated in 1873 three years before Colorado was even a state and all these years later this family business well it's still a family business and that doesn't happen often the story of Adolf Coors and Coors Brewing Company as told by Pete Coors here on Our American Stories so we've all tried protein drinks on the go but why don't they taste more like the ones we make at home or from the juice bar they're too chalky and too sweet from sugar or artificial sweeteners we love the health benefits but hate the taste now you can finally get both with don't quit protein drinks loaded with 33 grams of protein 26 vitamins and minerals and a cleaner approach to ingredients that use no artificial flavors or sweeteners but still delivers that smooth texture and delicious taste we all crave fuel your perseverance with don't quit clean protein drinks get yours now at amazon hey gorgeous it's Paris Hilton get the party started with my new album infinite icon out now and stream the new single bad academy welcome to the back academy I wanted this album to be an escape to take people to a happy place where they can heal and party in equal measure and most of all be your own unapologetic icon listen on iHeartRadio and visit infiniteicon.com to order the album sponsored by 11-11 media there's two kinds of people in the world people who love health aid kombucha and people who have never tried it the bubbly mix of probiotic tea and refreshing juice is delicious and good for your gut health with great flavors to choose from that you can't help but love if you've never tried it before maybe try a bottle or can of passion fruit tangerine or ginger lemon your taste buds and your gut will thank you look for the brown bottle with an anchor on it and try health aid kombucha today take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world the news agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening but why from me emily mateless and me john sopel with global's award-winning podcast the news agents dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs and the news agents usa in the race for the white house listening to the news agents on america's number one podcast network iHeart open your free iHeart app and search the news agents to start listening roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own make your dorm the place to be with roku tv or bring a roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like iHeart radio stream your favorite playlist with the roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you make your dorm the place to be with roku tv streaming players and smart lights head to roku.com or your favorite retailer to deck out your dorm