From the Archives: 45 rpm record of songs from the Coors Brewery strike and boycott

By Shaughnessy Speirs Tue., Sep. 18 2012 at 12:32 PM

In 1977, Coors Brewery workers went on strike over a host of grievances, and today the Auraria Library Special Collections Department contains a small collection of materials from the Coors Boycott and Strike Support Coalition of Colorado. With letters of solidarity, financial documents, receipts, product orders and a variety of promotional items ranging from comic books to stickers warning "Coors Beer not pasteurized," the collection documents a campaign that, in today's circumstances, might have existed merely as a change.org petition. But since happened in the '70s, the strikers also made music, like this 45 rpm record labeled "Coors Brewery Strike Songs."

The record includes only two songs -- "Coors Brewery" and "The Ballad of Joe Coors". They were performed by Kathy Kahn, vocalist and guitarist, with Danny McMahan on guitar. Kahn wrote the lyrics as a way to generate support; "The Ballad of Joe Coors" includes verses like this:

He said, you monkeys get in there to work
Quit standing out here in the street
Get into the brewery and bottle up that beer
We got a production to meet, today
We got a production to meet

and this:

We're gonna tell all the people how your beer ain't safe
When it's made by the hands of a scab
With no pasteurization and no qualifications
Your beer's gonna taste mighty drab, Joe
Your beer's gonna taste mighty drab

Revealing the fact that Coors beer was not pasteurized was a substantial tactic in the strikers' strategy against Coors. At the time, Coors was the only brewery that was not pasteurizing its beer.