It sounds crazy, but for most of the last 85 years, it was illegal in Colorado for breweries to sell low-alcohol beers to bars, restaurants or liquor stores. Anything under 4.0 percent ABV (or 3.2 percent alcohol by weight) was reserved strictly for grocery and convenience stores.
From the end of Prohibition until just two years ago, 3.2 beer was the only kind of booze the big supermarket and convenience chains could sell in Colorado, so the law protected them against competition. In addition to the macro-brewer brands like Coors Light and Bud Light, a few craft breweries distributed 3.2 beer here as well. But the rules changed on January 1, 2019, when the state legislature finally acquiesced and allowed supermarkets and convenience stores to add full-strength ales and lagers to their shelves and 3.2 beers faded into the history books, along with Prohibition and pull-tops.
Remember how cute we all were back in March, posting pictures on social media of ourselves wearing bandannas, looking like masked bank robbers and wondering whether or not businesses were going to allow people with masks to come inside? My, how things have changed. As time ticks slowly toward the March 17 anniversary of the beginning of Colorado s COVID lockdown, most small businesses and the people who frequent them have incorporated new rules and new ways of doing things in their daily lives.
These days, those bandannas have mostly been replaced by hospital-style masks and they are no longer cute while a host of other strange-looking scenes have become normal. Here are 25 Facebook photos from local breweries and beer bars that would have made no sense to us a year ago.