The Coors brewing company is building their first east coast brewery in Elkton, Virginia. Now, you can't have a brewery without a fermentation tank, where the unfinished beer, called wort, is alchemized from a rather unsavory mixture of water, malted barley gruel, hops and yeast into a tasty intoxicating beverage.Coors, as you know, is a very large brewer, and so needs a very large fermentation tank, something along the lines of 70 feet tall, and 20 feet in diameter with a capacity of 126,000 gallons. Oh, and not just one -- they'll need 40 of them.
So where, exactly, does one get these things? From Germany, of course! The tanks were shipped from Germany by, well, ship and arrived at a port in Virginia. They were then taken by river barge as far as King George County, where they were left awaiting land transport to their final destination of Elkton, some 95 miles to the west.
They'll start that last leg of the journey at midnight tonight. As a test run, only one tank will make the first trip (check out this Fredericksburg Freelance-Star article to see just how difficult it is to move these bad boys), and assuming all goes well, five tanks will make the trip very early every Sunday and Wednesday morning until they're all moved.
Now, if only they were brewing good beer out there in Elkton.
2 comments:
When I was tending bar a group came in and stayed awhile, running up a fairly hefty tab. A member of the Coors family paid the tab, along with a 40% tip.
I've been buying Coors ever since. :)
Boycott Bud and their cheesy commercials (remember the flaming horse fart ad) and support the REAL American beer!
Well, Coors Extra Gold, which I can't seem to find anywhere these days, was pretty good. But that Coors Light stuff...it's like club soda with a splash of beer. Blech!
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