The bane of bad restaurants…

An interesting article in the Albuquerque Journal last week told the story of an Albuquerque man who had recently celebrated his 100th birthday and claimed that drinking a can of Coors Banquet beer each day was the key to his longevity.

When Coors heard about Robert Nolen, Jr.’s, accomplishment, the company sent him three cases of its beer, a duffle bag of Coors merchandise and a birthday cake that looked like a can of the iconic brew.

At the time I grew into my best beer drinking days in college, Coors was the stuff of legends. You could only buy it in certain states in the west, since it was brewed only at one location in Golden, CO, and could not easily be distributed nationwide. It also required constant refrigeration from brewery to the consumer, which limited its distribution footprint. It was coveted by those who could not get it, even though they probably had never tasted it.

“”Brewed From Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water,” was its claim to superiority among all those other mass produced beers. It was a siren song to those who had to settle for Budweiser, Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, and others.

I remember when visitors to Western states from back East would make a point to consume as much Coors as they could during their time in the region. I distinctly remember one Easterner telling me that he visited the Coors plant in Golden and that an entire mountain river was piped directly into the brewery, with nary a drop of water from the stream ever to be seen exiting the plant again except in a bottle or can.

My brother-in-law, Fred, had moved from Nebraska to Louisiana in the 1960s to attend school at LSU. When he returned at Christmas or other times to Nebraska (which was a state in which you could buy Coors), he would load up as many cases of the brand as he could squeeze into his vehicle so he would have a good supply of the brew to last for months in Baton Rouge.

During that time, Coors would distribute free thin paper placemats to local restaurants within their footprint. The placemats for each of the states in their territory showed popular tourist attractions. I found the one below from Colorado on E-bay, with an asking price of $145.

These were usually distributed at smaller locally owned restaurants throughout the region. I recall one food critic remarking that if you went to a restaurant using the Coors placemats, it was a sure sign that the food would be sketchy.

“The bane of bad restaurants,” the epicurean authority commented about the placemats.

Well, Coors (although mostly Coors Light) is still my favorite beer. (I was harshly chastised once by a native German friend for my incredibly bad taste for liking Coors and not stout German lagers). Ales are too bitter for my tastes and other brews with things like green chile, chocolate or dump-truck-loads of hops are just not for me. I can tolerate a Mexican lager when roasting green chile in my back yard.

And actually, the best chicken fried steak I ever ate was served on a plate protected by a Coors beer placemat.

I guess that says a lot about my taste — or lack thereof.

And I have a really subtle off-color joke about Coors Light that I’ll share with you privately if you ask.