Coors Brewery is located a surprisingly few short blocks from the main downtown strip of businesses. The brewery is a prominent physical feature in town because it is plainly visible from Washington Avenue at the end of one of the main cross streets. The Coors building also has a large red and white sign that clearly says “Coors,” so it is quite impossible to not see Coors on any trip into downtown Golden.
On my visits to downtown I had seen shuttle buses with the Coors logo driving people around the town. I also heard from several residents that the short tour of Coors was a must-do for any visitor. I had no clue where to go to start tours, I just drove towards the giant building until I saw signs pointing for tours. Surprisingly, the signs directed me away from the parking lot that I would have expected to enter from.
A couple blocks down the street, I pulled up to a gatehouse for the lot. While I waited in line I observed the signs that told the guidelines of what was allowed on the tour, then when I pulled up to the gatehouse, the keeper told me the same things that I had just read on the signs. The jist of the rules was that any bag carried on the tour could not be any larger than about a normal sized camera bag. The guidelines ruled out bookbags, diaper bags, tote bags, and even camera straps. I am not sure why all of these things were not allowed, as if a tourist might go on a sudden rampage and decide to strangle someone with his camera neck strap. But I suppose it is better to be safe than sorry.
After I parked my car, I had to walk to the Coors shuttle bus station, where the bus picks up tourists about every 10 minutes, then shuttles them around downtown and points out places of interest and historical significance while telling groaner jokes in between the places with the memorized tour operator lines.
After 5 minutes of history, the shuttle drives back into the Coors complex in the directions that I had tried to enter before. After a long drive to the way back of the parking lot, the driver stops us and people start getting out. We all aimlessly wander into a large door and immediately get jammed into a crowd of people congregating around something, for some reason unbeknownst to me, but of course I must find out what it is, and therefore I contribute my own body to this people jam. The crowd started to disperse as I walked into it and I realized there were two girls in the center handing out beer labels. I took one and overheard someone say that these were tickets. Mine was a Zima label, which surprised me because I only know of this place as the Coors Brewery.
I had no idea what to do next, other than to wander around this massive room like everyone else was. This room was so large that it held at least 100 people with plenty of space to spare. A mini-museum lined one wall with old memorabilia and a timeline of Coors events. After about 10 minutes of looking at these items, an announcement was made on a loudspeaker for anyone with a certain label (for example Molson Light) to take a seat in the area around a certain color of flower arrangement. (On the tour you find out that the flowers in thee arrangements are grown in a greenhouse on the property that is fueled in some way by an industrial waste byproduct.)
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