OB: News Articles

Denver Post: Ten Fidy Imperial Stout

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0700

by Marcus Chamberland

Ten Fidy Imperial Stout by Oskar Blues Brewery, $12.99/four-pack

Ten Fidy Imperial Stout comes roaring out of the revered Oskar Blues Brewery just in time to warm the Colorado winter. As the late Country Dick Montana of The Beat Farmers used to say, it's just the man for the job, with alcohol by volume at a bristling 10 percent. Don't be scared off by the can -- all of Oskar Blues' outstanding brews are packaged in metal.

The pour on this bad boy is rich and viscous, with a head like chocolate icing. The aroma is full of coffee and cocoa, and those hearty flavors wrap nicely around the hops and malt for a smooth, roasty fullness.

The oats used in the brewing process give Ten Fidy a satisfying roundness in the mouth. A hint of molasses balances the barleywine-like 98 International Bitterness Units. The high alcohol content is barely noticeable on the tongue (but trust me, have a driver or call a cab).

This Colorado-proud Russian imperial stout may be a bit pricey, but it's worth it: It's at least one Denver Post writer's beer of the year. 303 Main St., Lyons; oskarblues.com.

Source URL: http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7754479

Dale's Pale Ale on the Today Show

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Dale's Pale Ale is previewed on the Today Show as the Men's Journal's concession beer category winner. See the video clip by clicking on the image below.

Oskar Blues does cooking on Denver's News 2

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Marty Jones of Oskar Blues was on the News 2 in Denver showing how one can prepare a spaghetti squash side dish with OB's Old Chub. See the video clip by clicking on the image below.

Redstone Review: Lyons brewer opens brewing operation in Longmont

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0600

by Susan de Castro McCann

Lyons local beer baron, Dale Katechis, is having trouble keeping up with demand.  His beer has become so popular that he is opening up a new brewery in Longmont.

Katechis likes to ride his bike to work and so he wanted to keep his whole beer brewing operation in Lyons, but in a tiny town like Lyons, there is just no room.  �We got land locked here,� said Katechis.  �Just logistically, we could not do it in Lyons.�

His current brewery, next to Oskar Blues Grill & Brew, the brew pub on Main Street, owned by Katechis and his wife Christi, which produces 16,000 barrels of beer a year in a 2,400 square foot space, is pushed to the max. Katechis sells his popular brews in 17 states, mostly along the East Coast.

daleHis new brewery, Oskar Blues Brewery LLC, located on the corner of Sunset Avenue and Pike Street in Longmont, is 35,000 square feet and will be able to produce 150,000 barrels of beer a year.  �I am applying for a microbrewer�s license,� said Katechis.  Currently he holds a brew pub license, which limits the amount of beer he can produce each year.  He will continue to operate the Oskar Blues LLC, the brewery next to the brew pub in Lyons, but that brewery will only produce beer for the restaurant; it will not be shipped anywhere.  Katechis started the restaurant in 1997 and began brewing beer at the restaurant in 1999. Oskar Blues signature beer, Dale�s Pale Ale, won a tasting contest by a panel of beer connoisseurs at the New York Times on June 29, 2005.  Dale�s not so Pale Ale won the best tasting pale ale from a selection of 24 ales and the local brewery was featured in a New York Times story, bringing the already popular beer to international prominence. It�s the hint of grapefruit that won the taste test over all the others.  According to the New York Times, �Dale�s Pale Ale does not just satisfy, it inspires.� It has definitely inspired Katechis to work harder, if that�s possible.

Orders began to pour in, but the little brewery could barely keep up even after expanding the brewery in 2002, when people from Ball Canning Division in Boulder convinced Katechis that his beer would stay fresher and taste better in cans.

He took the taste test and was won over, starting a revolution in the beer industry by becoming the first microbrew to get canned.  Oskar Blues LLC became the largest brew pub in the country and it will now be a major player in the micro brewing industry.

Along with Dale�s Pale, the Lyons brewery produces Old Chub, Gordon, and Ten Fidy Imperial Stout, which is a new winter seasonal beer.  There will also be a new seasonal beer called Mama�s Little Yella Pils, a pilsner summer brew.

As more beer is brewed, more people will be hired.  About five to ten new people will be hired for the Longmont plant.  Some of the brewing staff from Lyons will go to work in Longmont.  �We have already ordered all our new brewing equipment for the Longmont plant, new fermentation tanks, new silos, a new brew house,� said Katechis.  �And we have already started hiring more people, we will need more brewers. We hope to have our canning machine up and running by Valentine�s Day (February 14). We will start brewing in December or January.  We will be able to brew 50 barrels at a time; now we can only brew 20 barrels at a time.  We are currently back-ordered at over 25,000 cases.�

Dale�s Pale is the biggest seller making up over 80 percent of sales.  Katechis expects to have his micro brewer�s license by the end of November.  Oskar Blues sells beer in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Idaho, Delaware, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Washington, D.C., Washington, Arizona and Colorado.

Katechis said that he has a list of states that want to sell his beer.  But Oskar Blues is not just about brewing more beer and growing bigger.  In early September the Colorado Restaurant Association awarded Katechis the Cornerstone Humanitarian Award for all the humanitarian work he has done to help seniors, children and families in need in the Lyons area by opening up his restaurant for benefits, fundraisers and auctions.  �Each state picks a winner and Colorado chose me as the winner this year,� said Katechis. �They send each winner to the National Restaurant Association and on Sept. 22 a national winner is chosen. The winner gets a $5,000 check donated to the charity of his or her choice.  It was nice to be recognized, but I think that it speaks for the town of Lyons.  It is a reflection of the community�s effort, not mine.�

Source URL: http://www.redstonereview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=41

Daily Camera: Can spells expansion for Oskar Blues

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0600

Lyons brewery will open new production facility in Longmont

Vail Daily: The little can that could

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0600

by Caramie Schnell

Monster beers in a can. That�s basically the mantra at Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons � only 12 miles from Boulder, but a world away when it comes to pretense. In 2002, owner Dale Katechis started the �canned beer apocalypse,� now the company�s trademarked marketing slogan. Coffee cup securely in hand, Wayne Anderson, the brewery�s sales manager whose card reads �Rainmaker/ Caretaker, aka Dale�s Pimp,� gave three Vail-ites a tour of the company�s operation last Saturday morning.

Katechis and his wife Christi have owned Oskar Blues Grill and Brew since 1996, but it took one loyal customer�s comments � �You call yourself a grill and brew but you�re not making any beer. What gives?� � to prompt Katechis into kicking the �brew� part into gear. When the first brew, Dale�s Pale Ale � a lively, hop-heavy brew � started getting noticed by beer afficionados and winning accolades, Katechis and his crew decided to try their hand at bottling and distributing the beer.
That�s when dumb luck struck, Anderson said.

An unsolicited fax from Cask Brewing Company in Canada showed up at the office. They were selling small-scale (two beers at a time) canning operations to small, independent brewers. �We thought they were knuckleheads,� Anderson said. As Katechis tells it in a video on oskarblues.com, he laughed hysterically for six months until one day, he stopped laughing.

Can it

Turns out the can, usually associated with cheap sub-par beer in the minds of microbrew converts, wasn�t such a bad idea after all.

�It�s the freshest package for beer,� Anderson said. �No air, no light � those are the things that kill beer.� Plus cans are portable, chill quickly and are welcomed where bottles aren�t � at the beach, the swimming pool, on boats, and at the golf course.
And so, two cans at a time, Oskar Blues became the first U.S. microbrewery to can its own beer.

�We�re in this,� Katechis said on the Web site, �to have fun and put some extra joy on the planet. We love the way people�s heads spin around after they try one of our monster canned beers. �That came out of a can?� We hear it all the time.�

The brewery can�t make the beer fast enough � literally. For the past five years, the brewery has had 100 percent growth, which Anderson and Katechis are quick to attribute to the can. That original two-can by hand canning system is now a five-can automatic endeavor, which produces 70 cans an hour. The facility has expanded five times in four years and they now sell their beer in 17 states.

�This building is not two years old and it�s maxed out,� Anderson said, pointing at the large warehouse building behind the restaurant that houses rows of stainless steel tanks and filters. Last year the brewery produced 8,129 barrels of beer � this year they�re set to hit 14,500 barrells.

Come January Anderson hopes the beer will be brewed a few miles east of the Lyons location at a new production brewery that�s already in the works.

�Hopefully we�ll be making beer there by the first of the year,� he said.

All hail the can

Stepping inside the actual brew house, brewmaster Dave Chichura was busy knocking out the first brew of the day � Old Chub, a Scottish strong ale that comes in at one-beer-will-get-you-buzzed 8 percent alcohol by volume. Chichura took over as the head brewmaster two years ago, when the brewery was making 4,000 barrels of beer a year. That number has more than trippled since � and watching Dave literally run from the mash ton, where sugars are extracted from the barley to make wort, to the cold filter, where a batch of Dale�s Pale Ale was being filtered into the finishing tank for carbonation, it�s clear to see that neither time or production capabilities are seldom, if ever, under used.

Three of the beers Chichura brews are canned and shipped out � Old Chub, which is brewed with seven different malts; Dale�s Pale Ale, the brewery�s flagship beer, which the Rocky Mountain News deemed the Top Colorado Brewed Beer in Nov. and The New York Times picked as the best pale ale in America in 2005; and Gordon, a hefty 8.7 percent, falls somewhere between an Imperial Red and a Double IPA.

Gordon, Anderson tells us, started as a one time Champagne-bottled brew to honor the late Gordon Knight who died in 2002 while fighting a wild fire outside of Lyons. Knight was a huge �hop head� who had the distinction of winning three gold medals at three Great American Beer Festivals� for three different microbreweries he founded.

�People went apeshit over the beer,� Anderson said, so Gordon became the third Oskar Blues mainstay brew. And even though while peering into the liquor store�s cooler you might grunt in surprise at the $12.99 price tag for the four-pack of cans, Chichura reminds that at 8.7 percent alcohol by volume, you�re getting nearly twice the bang for your buck � a true monster, indeed.

-----

If you go ...

What: Oskar Blues Grill and Brew
Where: 303 Main Street, Lyons. Take I-70 East to the HIghway 6, pick up Highway 93 in Boulder, which will take you to Lyons.
Grub: The restaurant features Cajun specialties like red beans and rice and jambalaya. Try the Cajun spaghetti with shrimp, crab and scallops in a creamy creole sauce. The blackened scallops served over creamy parmesean potatoes is a house favorite.
Brew: If you go to the brewery, be sure to try a pint of the Mama�s Little Yella Pils (for Pilsner). Since this light pilsner currently isn�t canned, you can�t get it anywhere but on tap at the brewery.
Secret: If you ask nicely, you might score an unofficial tour (the only kind the brewery folks give) of the brewing operation.
Music: During the summer the downstairs bar hosts live music, oftentimes blues bands, on their stage five nights a week.
More Information: Call (303) 823-6685 or check out www.oskarblues.com.

Find it here ...

The following liquor stores and restaurants carry at least one of the three Oskar Blues brews or serve the beer on tap:
� Avon Liquors
� Beaver Liquors in Avon
� Pier 13 Liquors in Eagle-Vail
� West Vail Liquors
� Alpine Wine and Spirits
� Moe�s BBQ in Lionshead

Source URL: http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070721/AE/70721006

Palm Beach Post: Hark! It's 'The Canned Beer Apocalypse'

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0600

by Dan Oliver

Will craft brews survive the aluminum revolution?

Forget Global Warming for now. Don't worry about Hurricane what's-its-name. Terrorists? Bird Flu? TB? Paris Hilton? Please!

None of these potential human plagues promises a larger or more imminent impact on our lives than a phenomenon already infiltrating our tropical paradise; the Canned Beer Apocalypse! (Remain calm, I beg you. Just remember where you put the duct tape and plastic sheeting and we'll get through this together.)

The Canned Beer Apocalypse is both a joke and serious at the same time.

The phrase is actually a registered trademark of Oskar Blues Brewing Company in Lyons, Colo. Back in 2002, owner Dale Katechis, the namesake of Dale's Pale Ale, and maker of Old Chub Scottish Ale and Gordon, got a fax from Cask Brewing Systems, a Canadian company hawking canning contraptions to small, independent brewers like himself.

"Put my bold, hoppy Pale Ale into a can?" he scoffed. Then he laughed, long and loud, and continued to laugh for weeks. At some point, (exhaustion I presume) Dale stopped laughing and started learning, and you know what he found out?

Metallic myth

The idea that cans impart a metallic taste to beer may have once been true but today is a myth. A special water-based polymer now coats the insides, preventing beer from meeting metal. Not only that, cans protect beer from its two arch enemies, sunlight and oxygen, meaning it keeps beer fresher and for a longer time than bottles.

There's more. Cans are lighter and more portable than bottles, ideal for taking into and out of the great outdoors. And yo, tree-huggers! Cans are easier to recycle and again, lighter, so shipping them uses less fuel and lowers beer's carbon footprint. The thought of packaging his "liquid art" in a can was both hilarious and blasphemous, so how could he resist?

Katechis started canning, (the first U.S. craft brewer to do so) two beers at a time, and it didn't take long before folks started taking notice. The Beer Guy himself made a side trip to Oskar Blues during the Great American Beer Festival in Denver several years ago, and brought home a sixer of cans to share with fellow beer geeks who were duly impressed.

In 2005, The New York Times conducted a taste test and declared Dale's Pale Ale to be the best in the nation. Old Chub, the strong Scottish Ale won rave reviews from, among others, the Wall Street Journal. (Although someone please tell me how they became beer experts?) Last but certainly not least Gordon, a hybrid strong ale and the strongest and hoppiest of the three has elicited "wows" from brewing icons Charlie Papazian, Garrett Oliver and even Dan Oliver. (OK, brewing icon may be stretching it a bit.)

But it wasn't until February of this year when Oskar Blues' canned beers debuted in our market. Since then says Ray Nickolaus of Fresh Beer Inc. distributers, "demand has been steadily growing, sometimes outstripping supply." They are currently the only craft beers in cans available in our area. It's no coincidence Florida was bumped near the front of the line when it came to choosing out of state markets.

"We figure all those boaters, fishermen, beach-goers and pool-siders are due something more meaningful and delicious in their beer cans" says Oskar Jones PR man Marty Jones. "Big fun in the outdoors is one of life's greater pleasures, it's worthy of equally big exciting beer. Not watered-down, flavorless factory beer."

Katechis is now shipping his beers to 16 states outside of Colorado, and his can-do attitude has resulted in, ahem, un-canny success. Oskar Blues has experienced four straight years of 100 percent growth (121 percent in 2006), and according to Katechis, it's all due to the cans. Close to 30 other American craft brewers have joined the canning movement. Not only that, but Anheuser-Busch, who began canning Budweiser in 1936, recently came out with aluminum bottles, which became so popular they pledged to double production of them by this year.

The Apocalypse

But just as "climate change" has detractors and skeptics in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, so too does the CBA (Canned Beer Apocalypse). Jim Koch claims to have turned down millions of dollars in profits to keep his Sam Adams beers in the bottle. He believes tiny holes in the polymer can still affect the beer's flavor, not to mention the unprotected pop-top once it's opened.

"We started our 'Canned Beer Apocalypse' as something of a joke," says Katechis. "We wanted to make people laugh, give them a delicious beer in a more portable package, and take the shame out of drinking canned beer."

Some craft beer observers believe cans may be a big factor in the industry's growth over the next decade, perhaps enticing Bud, Coors and Miller drinkers to jump ship. But it won't happen overnight. Dogfish Head, a prominent east coast micro-brewer, says canning doesn't fit with their brand image. So guess what? Your beer won't be fitting in my cooler on my next weekend canoe trip. As it should be, we consumers will ultimately decide the outcome of the CBA.

Dale's Pale Ale ($7.99-$8.99 per six pack), Old Chub Scottish Ale ($7.99-$8.99) and Gordon ($9.99-$11.99) are available at discriminating beverage outlets in our area, including Crown Liquors, North Palm Beach, BX Beer Depot, Lake Worth, Case & Keg, Boca Raton, Whole Foods in Boca and Palm Beach Gardens, Total Wine in Palm Beach Gardens and the Beverage Outlet, Jupiter.

Dale's Pale Ale is also served on tap at Roxy's on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, while Old Chub can be sampled at the Yardhouse, Downtown at the Gardens.

Be aware these are big, bold, flavorful beers and may well overwhelm the palate of the uninitiated, not to mention the possibility of knocking you on your can if you over-imbibe.

3 more 'can do' beers

• Old Speckled Hen, Morland Brewery, Suffolk, England: The name of this ale describes an old MG, and was first brewed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the car. It's purring along pretty well, outselling even Newcastle Brown Ale in Britain. It didn't used to be my cup of tea, but the strong yeast flavor seems to have mellowed over time. Total Wine & More, $6.99 per 4-pack.

• Abbot Ale, Greene King Brewery, Suffolk, England: A classic British Ale in a can. Fruity, malty, nicely balanced. I'd rather drink it on tap at a London Pub, (which I did long ago) but this will have to do for now. Sold almost exclusively at Albertsons, $7.49 per 16-ounce 4-pack.

• Witterkerke Belgian Wheat, Bavik Brewery, Bavikhove, Belgium: Wittekerke means 'white church' and some might say putting this traditional Wit Bier in a can is nothing short of heresy. But it works for me. Light, cloudy, citrusy, it's a perfect foil to our searing summers. ABC Fine Wine and Spirits, $6.49 per 11.2 oz. 6-pack.

Dan Oliver is an executive board member of the Palm Beach Draughtsmen Home-brewing club. He can be contacted at doliver@pbpost.com.

Photos by Jaime Kujala, The Post

Source URL: :http://www.palmbeachpost.com/food/content/food_dining/epaper/2007/07/05/a8fn_beercol_cans_0705.html