More than a hundred Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles were lost when a beer truck door was left open, spilling six cases of the medal-winning lager on South Camino del Rio about 8:30 a.m. Friday.
Broken glass littered the east shoulder of the intersection at Sawyer Drive. Empty boxes and the beer-slicked highway testified to a beer run gone awry.
Durango police Officer David Smith as well as Deputy Steve Reiter of the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office responded to the glass-strewn accident site. They helped the Southwestern Beverage Co. driver clean up the broken glass.
Traffic was not affected, but all of the city’s officers and all of the county’s deputies could not put the broken bottles back together again.
The driver lost six cases comprising 144 beers – or 1,728 ounces of what Pabst calls “only the finest of hops and grains.”
Sara Walsh, administrator at Southwestern Beverage Co., assured the The Durango Herald no customer’s needs would go unmet.
“There will be no shortage,” she said. “He’s delivering the rest of the route, and all is good.”
Southwestern also distributes other brands of beer and nonalcoholic beverages, but, Walsh said, “PBR is our main beer.”
The bottles spilled when the driver turned left onto South Camino del Rio. Walsh said the driver, who she declined to name, would not be punished.
“Of course not,” she said. “He’s worked with us for, gosh, like 30 years. He’s the best. We love him.”
Wagon Wheel Liquors, of Durango, was expecting a delivery later Friday. Shana Maslak, Wagon Wheel’s wine buyer, said PBR is “probably one of our top sellers.”
The mishap occurred not far from the locally owned distributor at 124 Turner Drive. The distributor is neighbors to Ska Brewing Co., a craft brewer of the sort that has in recent years steadily taken market share from large-scale brewers, such as Pabst.
Ska Brewing President Dave Thibodeau expressed his sympathy.
“They’re dear neighbors to us, the Southwestern Beverage family,” he said.
Thibodeau had nothing but praise for PBR, which won a gold medal at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival.
“Away from the brewery, it’s our beer of choice,” he said. “PBR tastes like hipsters’ tears.”
cslothower@durangoherald.com
