When the Rox made the postseason, the only team I really didn’t feel confident Colorado could take on was the Diamondbacks. I mean really, the possibility of taking on the Cubs – it would have been another blowout like the Phillies served up in the divisional series.
The Diamondbacks are different. They are good, and have been all season.
But if I were a Diamondbacks fan, the series would still worry me. In the back of my mind would stick the fact that if Arizona had only come up with one more win in those final two games of the regular season against the Rockies, they wouldn’t now be facing the hottest team in baseball.
That’s all I’ll say about the series, no predictions here. I hope the good guys win.
And now for a rare business tangent that is somewhat related to the Rockies. On Sunday evening, a large number of thirsty baseball fans will enter Coors Field to watch the Rockies take on the Diamondbacks in game three. They will enter Coors Field with a taste for beer, not swill. And guess what? They’ll have one heck of a time sifting through the swill to find a beer worth drinking.
I have been there, done that. I can’t tell you how many laps I’ve completed around the Coors Field diamond desperately looking for a Budweiser at one of maybe five vendors throughout the entire stadium. What’s worse – when you finally find the Bud vendor, there is a line a mile long. It is then that I realize I am not alone, but surrounded by fellow beer drinkers who enjoy that clean, crisp refreshing taste America has enjoyed at baseball games since Babe Ruth.
Budweiser is the number one beer in America and has been for a very long time. The other beer companies have forever been plotting to take the crown from the king, and failed. Their next ploy won’t work either.
On Tuesday, SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing, the No. 2 and No. 3 brewing companies in the nation, joined forces to take on No. 1 Anheuser-Busch. The New York Times reported that the joint venture, to be known as MillerCoors, will have $6.6 billion in annual sales and eventually result in $500 million in annual cost savings. The joint operation will control about 29 percent of the American beer market, compared to the dominating 49 percent Anheuser-Busch controls.
Pete Coors, vice chairman of Molson Coors, told The Times that the joint venture was prompted by “profound” changes in the American alcohol business challenging large beer companies.
Profound changes? Nobody has been excited to buy a Coors Banquet Beer (what the hell is a banquet beer?) since the late 70s when everybody wanted to be a part of that Rocky Mountain high migration, listening to John Denver, smoking doobies and planning communes. And even then, my mountain man hippie dad was secretly stashing Buds in his private cooler while on some backcountry ski excursion because the Coors image couldn’t fool his taste for good beer. And it still doesn’t today.
Right now, Coors is like a pimply adolescent, awkward and self-conscious. They try to sell beer made from Rocky Mountain water, but really don’t care. Did they forget that they dumped thousands of gallons beer in the stream near their Golden brewery, killing tens of thousands of fish? Boy that was some clean Rocky Mountain refreshment.
And don’t get me started on Miller. It says a lot about someone who orders you a Miller Lite (or even worse an MGD) at a nervous sporting event when cold, clean refreshment is imperative for mind stability – it almost seems like they are playing for the other (usually southern) team. The only one I really feel sorry for in this merger is Molson. They brew good beer but are now found at the same address as those aforementioned beer flunkies.
My point is that their ploy to dominate the beer market will not work. The American beer drinker has a discerning palate, and until they stop producing yellow-tinted flower water, Bud will remain the King of Beers.
The future may be bleak at Coors Field, with only Coors or Miller available to slake your thirst. But until that happens, twist off one of those red, white and blue longnecks, and toast those who know what beer tastes like. Go Rockies.
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