Willie Nelson Is Often Linked To These Two American Beer Brands

It's no head-scratcher that a country music legend might be associated with beer. After all, lyrical references to barrooms feature prominently in the genre, along with pickup trucks, cowboy boots, and back country roads. In Willie Nelson's case, fans continue to associate him with two All-American beer brands — Lone Star and Coors — even though his drinking days are long passed.

Both are beers that everyone drank in the '70s, and both have strong ties to Nelson's native Texas. But the first beer fans link synonymously with the country crooner, Lone Star, is known as the "National Beer of Texas." The company even made Nelson their unofficial spokesman, back in the early '70s, before brand deals were a music industry norm. The offer came through Nelson's friend, Jerry Retzloff, Lone Star's former marketing and promotions manager. The deal, apparently too good to pass up, allowed Lone Star to supply drinks for the band backstage in exchange for Nelson drinking one onstage. Already on the rise, Nelson's stamp of approval catapulted the beer's popularity with the country music crowd.

The second beer with ties to Nelson is Coors — a staple in the country music scene. Time even referred to it as, "The Beer That Won the West." Once upon a time in Texas, the original incarnation of Coors beer (called Coors Banquet) was a hard commodity to come by. Back then, Coors had a bit of a reputation as an outlaw (just like Shotgun Willie) caused by its limited availability due to lack of pasteurization. 

That win-win arrangement with Lone Star also resulted in a number of memorable photos of the "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" singer with a bottle nearby, though arguably none as iconic as one snapped at the precise moment the 12-time Grammy winner popped open a can of Coors onstage and it sprayed out in every direction.

Nelson's cover of the country standard, "Bubbles in My Beer," was released in June of 1973, just one month before his first of the now-famous, annual 4th of July Picnics held in Dripping Springs, Texas. According to one fan's entertaining personal tale (detailed on his blog, "A Country for Old Men,") he attended Nelson's annual 4th of July Picnic in 1975. He recounts carrying three cases of Coors for three miles from his car to the venue. "Coors was gold in those days in South Texas because Lubbock was the only city where you could get the nectar of the Golden, Co[lorado] brewing gods," he recalled.

But which brand's beer was bubbling in Nelson's song? Was it Lone Star or Coors? Well, your guess is as good as the next cowboy's because unfortunately, there's no record of exactly which one of those beers Nelson actually preferred, unlike his favorite Southern foods — for which Nelson has gone on record, detailing each and everyone of his down home Texas favorites.