Oskar Blues

Sorry for the delay in posting this article. Ian and I are HUGH fans of the Oskar Blue movement. Craft beer in cans you say. How can this be so? Well, we have tried Dales Pale Ale, Gordon, and Old Chub from Oskar Blues offering and we are hooked!! Check out our reviews!! They have a great video about their operations: Movie link

Sean
2Beerguys.com

Drink Craft Beer, You've Earned It!!



Oskar Blues Celebrates Five Years of Canned Beer Apocalypse




Lyons, Colorado (November 2007) -- This month Oskar Blues Brewery is wrapping up the fifth year of its pioneering microcanning effort. The scrappy little brewery sold its first can of Dale’s Pale Ale in November of 2002.

The move made Oskar Blues the first US craft brewer to brew and can its own beer. It has also fueled some of the heftiest growth in the US craft beer trade. Oskar Blues’ beer production has grown by 2000% over the past five years.

Prior to filling its first can of Dale’s Pale Ale on a table-top, two-cans-at-once filler, the brewery produced 700 barrels of beer. This year Oskar Blues will craft 14,000 barrels of beer. (Up from 8,100 barrels in 2006.)

“It’s been an incredible run for us,” says founder Dale Katechis. “We launched our Canned Beer Apocalypse as something of a joke, and a way to draw attention to our brewpub. Some of our peers thought we were nuts at the time. But we heard from many retailers and consumers back then who loved the irreverence and practicality of the idea.”

“It’s still a gut buster for us,” Katechis adds, “but it’s turned into a much bigger adventure than we imagined five years ago. We've changed the reputation of the aluminum can, and enabled serious beer lovers to buy canned beer without shame. And we’ve had a load of fun and success along the way.”



To celebrate its fifth year of microcanning, Oskar Blues has now put the first cans of its winter seasonal beer, Ten FIDY Imperial Stout, on shelves of select stores in Colorado.

Fourpacks of the viscous, ultra-rich and roasted beer retail for $12.99. A small amount of canned Ten FIDY will reach other states in the Oskar Blues roster next month.

On December 1, from noon - 4 PM, the brewery will have a party to celebrate its first five years of microcanning. The affair will feature a Cajun buffet and crawfish boil, live music, and specials on all Oskar Blues beers.

The event will also serve as the official roll out of a limited-release batch of 5-liter/1.3 gallon mini kegs of Dale’s Pale Ale. The keg cans (with built-in taps) will reach select stores along the Front Range starting December 3. They will retail for around $24.

Visitors to the Oskar Blues pub in Lyons can buy these cans filled with Dale’s Pale Ale, as well as Old Chub Scottish Style Ale, Gordon, Ten FIDY and the brewpub’s other-in-house beers. These cans have replaced the traditional glass growler at Oskar Blues.

This summer Oskar Blues announced details on its building of a second, 35,000-square-feet brewery in Longmont, Colorado. The new brewery will produce all of the company’s canned beers and have an initial annual capacity of 30,000 barrels. The new brewery is expected to serve its first beers in March.

Oskar Blues Brewery’s beers are now in Colorado and 16 other states (AZ, NM, ID, WA, WI, VA, GA, NC, FL, NJ, NY, PA, MA, MD, CT and RI). Oskar Blues Brewery is located in Lyons, Colorado (pop.1500), a small mountain town 18 miles northwest of Boulder, Colorado. The brewpub and music venue was opened in 1997 by Katechis and his wife, Christi Katechis. Oskar Blues Brewery’s beers are canned five cans at a time on equipment from Cask Brewing Systems in Alberta, Canada. Get details at www.cask.com.



For more information visit www.oskarblues.com.

Link to article.