John Hickenlooper and Pete Coors will toast Colorado's 135th birthday with... a beer!

You can take the man out of the brewery, but you can't take the beer away from the man. Governor John Hickenlooper will cement beer as Colorado's state beverage on Monday when he joins Pete Coors and Glenn Knippenberg, present of Coors subsidiary AC Golden Brewing, in toasting Colorado's 135th...

By Jonathan Shikes

July 29, 2011

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You can take the man out of the brewery, but you can't take the beer away from the man. Governor John Hickenlooper will cement beer as Colorado's state beverage on Monday when he joins Pete Coors and Glenn Knippenberg, present of Coors subsidiary AC Golden Brewing, in toasting Colorado's 135th birthday with a beer.

The three men will tip back bottles of Colorado Native, an AC Golden beer made with 99 percent Colorado-grown or -produced ingredients, during the seventh-inning stretch of a game at Coors Field in which the Philadelphia Phillies will beat the Colorado Rockies. The toast will be broadcast on Root Sports, which carries the game.

(See a video of Pete and Glenn getting in an early brew by clicking here.)

Founded in 2008 as an incubator for small-batch, craft-style beers, AC Golden also makes Winterfest, Herman Joseph's Private Reserve and a whole bunch of expertly produced one-off barrels that it occasionally sells to a bar or enters into a contest.

Colorado Day is celebrated every year on August 1, and kicks off Colorado Proud month, which highlights locally grown, raised and processed food and agricultural products. Oh, and here's a list of ten other beers Hickenlooper could have picked.

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