A quarrel has brewed up along Colorado’s beer-rich Front Range.

The namesake of the state’s biggest and oldest brewer cried foul Monday over comments Colorado craft brewers made last week about “Big Beer” at their trade organization’s annual conference.

Pete Coors, chairman of Molson Coors, drafted an open letter to the Boulder-based Brewers Association and charged that the group’s leadership made statements that could harm the beer industry as a whole.

“Competition in our industry should be honored and cherished. I agree with you that craft brewers are ‘exemplars of the American Dream, of entrepreneurial spirit,’ according to Coors’ letter, which was published in Beer Business Daily. “However, you must realize that big brewers are as well. There should be no room for cheap shots and insults (‘faux,’ ‘crafty,’ ‘capitulated’ beers) for each other.

“That is a slippery slope that does not end well for our industry. We have enough competition inside the beer business and outside it with wine, spirits and, increasingly, marijuana.”

Coors took the Brewers Association’s very definition of craft brewer as a slight against big brewers, asking, “Should the quality of beers produced by them, including hundreds of quality medals be insulted by the Brewers Association simply because the parent company isn’t part of your ever-changing ‘club?'”

Coors noted that he is a member of the association.

Bob Pease, president and CEO of the Brewers Association, issued this statement Monday: “The Brewers Association has the utmost respect for Pete and the Coors family and we would look forward to sitting down with Pete over a beer and discussing his concerns. We look forward to doing so in a thoughtful and respectful fashion.”

A week ago, members of the Boulder-based Brewers Association decried “Big Beer,” claiming multinational conglomerate operations were infiltrating the small and independent brewery sector, appropriating craft beer culture and smothering the smaller companies in the process, according to a Brewbound report.

“The many faux craft, crafty, captive, capitulated and acquired brands are weapons in the arsenal of the big breweries and used to control as much of the market as possible,” said Eric Wallace, co-founder of Longmont’s Left Hand Brewing Co. and Brewers Association executive committee chairman, as reported by Brewbound. “(Through) clever and deceptive packaging design, omission of ownership statements on labels, intellectual property violations, denigrating and expensive marketing campaigns, monopolistic practices choking off raw materials and distribution channels, rampant violations of trade practices and exclusionary tactics in venues and accounts in many markets, these guys are out to eat our collective lunch and take your kids’ lunch money as well.”

In a post accompanying Coors’ letter, the Beer Business Daily report claimed that several of the distributors for the large brewers “took umbrage with the tone of the general session, as it is those brands which keep (the craft brewers’) doors open.”