50 Years Later, South Dakota Woman Makes Good on Beer Promise

If you are the kind of person who gets freaked out when something in your fridge goes a day or two past its expiration date, you are going to hate this story.

Because this story is about a South Dakota woman who cracked open and drank a 50-year old can of beer.

But she had a very good reason for doing it.

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Food & Wine tells the tale of Diane Nesselhuf from Vermillion and how she found herself on the business end of this can of Coors from 1971.

It was Valentine's Day1971 when Diane and her fiance Ed became husband and wife.

Ed's family from Colorado couldn't make it to the wedding, so the newlywed couple headed to the Centennial State for a visit.

While there, the couple picked up this particular can of Coors, which at the time was only available in and around the brewery in Golden, Colorado.

Ed then told his new wife they were saving the can for their 50th anniversary.

Over the subsequent years, the Nesselhuf family moved quite a bit - Wisconsin, Minneapolis, and British Columbia, before coming to South Dakota, first to Rapid City, then Chamberlain, and after a stop in Maryland, finally settled in Vermillion.

At every stop along the way that can of beer moved with them.

Sadly, their dream of sharing that cold one on their 50th never happened when Ed passed away from cancer in 2016.

But five years later, on February 14, 2021, Diane made good on her end of the deal when she split the eight-ounce can of beer with the couple's son Ben.

Mother and son later shared their story with Sioux City TV station KCAU, telling reporter Tim Seaman that they were surprised at how good the beer tasted half a century later.

That's not the end of the story though.

After KCAU shared the story, the folks at Coors picked up on it in Colorado and recently sent Diane a very special Coors Banquet beer cake with the message, 'Cheers to 50 years.'

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