For decades, 18-year-olds could drink low-alcohol beer in Colorado. Here’s how that changed

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A group of men and women sit at a table at the Marine Grill
Denver Public Library Special Collections
A group of men and women sit at a table at the Marine Grill in Denver, Colo. holding bottles of Coors beer on Nov. 10, 1946. Colorado has a long history of youth drinking including allowing 18-year-olds to drink 3.2.

View of a Thirsty's
Denver Public Library Special Collections

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CU students hold signs: "Strike! protest the genocide in Vietnam," "On strike protest Nixon and his war in insanity," "On Strike no more war," "Stop the atrocities in Asia and on campus on strike," "On strike for peace," "End the war shut it down," "Shut it down for your own sake."
Denver Public Library Special Collections

The Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado.
AP Photo/File

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Former Gov. Bill Ritter and Gov. Jared Polis speak after a memorial for Hugh McKean in the Colorado State Capitol rotunda. Nov. 10, 2022.

An Argonaut Liquors employee carts beer by a display of Extra Gold Lager
Rocky Mountain News Photograph Collection via Denver Public Library