INDIANAPOLIS (AP) _ Coors Brewing Co. now can claim it is truly a national beer.

The Golden, Colo.-based brewer announced Tuesday that its beers next week will became available in cans and bottles at Hoosier retailers. Coors and Coors Light had become available in kegs in Indiana only as recently as January.

Indiana was the last state where Coors was not sold.

″It took us a long time because it took a long time to find the distributors that could maintain the high quality standards that we set for our beer,″ company spokeswoman Cinde Dolphin said in a telephone interview.

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Coors, founded 118 years ago, was slow to arrive in the Indiana market because the state does not allow exclusive distributorships as other states do. More than one distributor of the same brand of beer are allowed to compete for sales in the same local markets.

The brewer likes control over distributors to ensure its product is refrigerated from point of production to point of sale. All Coors products are brewed in Golden. The brewer also produces Keystone and Keystone Light brands of beer.

″We’ve heard for many years that the people of Indiana want our beers,″ Miss Dolphin said. Retailers and wholesalers have asked for Coors, she said, and consumers have brought it into Indiana from other states.

The eight Indiana distributors the brewer has chosen will make Coors available to the entire state, she said.

Until Indiana, the last states to receive Coors were Pennsylvania and Delaware in 1989. Miss Dolphin said Coors now has as high as a 30 percent market share in some areas of Pennsylvania, which has become its third largest state for sales volume.

Asked if Coors expected to duplicate those results in Indiana, Miss Dolphin said, ″It’s quite an ambitious undertaking. We’re not sure we can achieve that high in Indiana. We would just like to sell as much beer as possible.″

The first six-pack for sale will arrive by jet Wednesday afternoon at Indianapolis International Airport, destined for Mayor William Hudnut’s offices, Miss Dolphin said. The products go on sale Monday at retail outlets.

Coors, the nation’s third-largest brewer, reported record net sales of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1990.