From Grains to Gas

In 1969, after his junior year in high school, Rick Paine got a summer job with Coors and began working in the greenhouse. The next summer, he was transferred to production where he was asked to harvest spent yeast from the large glass-lined aging tanks. He never imagined that 37 years later he’d be overseeing the operation that turns that same spent yeast into ethanol, helping to boost America’s energy security while at the same time making Coors both more profitable and more environmentally responsible.

As Manager of Co-Products, Rick oversees the Coors ethanol plant, which is owned by Merrick and operated by Coors. There, millions of pounds of spent yeast and waste beer from the beer brewing operation are converted to some two million gallons of ethanol annually, and then shipped directly to local refineries to be blended with gasoline. This process takes a former waste stream and turns it into a product that is friendlier to the environment and reduces our reliance on fossil fuels.

Some 11 years ago, just as ethanol was gaining popularity as a fuel additive, the operations team at Coors decided to see if it was possible to produce fuel-ready ethanol from yeast and packaging waste beer. The brewery had already been producing ethanol from these products, but now the challenge was to eliminate the need for intermediate processing, making the operation both more efficient and more profitable.

Through technology that has become available within the last few years, the Merrick-Coors partnership has the capability to send 12- to 17-proof ethanol to its processing towers and get back 199.5-proof ethanol, ready for shipment. “The beauty of our ethanol,” Rick notes, “is that there’s no additional refining. In essence it goes straight from here to the pump.”

Rick takes pride in his job, and has ever since that first summer job. Back in 1969, he was following in the footsteps of his dad, Larry Paine, who worked for Coors for 35 years until he passed away in 1982. “He’d worked well past the point when he could retire, but he just loved working for the Coors family,” remembers Rick.

When he walks through the Coors Visitor Center in Golden, Rick yells to a young woman clearing up a guest table, “Hey, those tables had better be in perfect shape!” He says this with a wink – it turns out she’s his daughter, Stephanie Paine. “The Coors family has always made a point of hiring the sons and daughter of its employees for summer jobs,” Rick points out. “That sure has worked out well for my family.”