We teamed up with our buddies from Indiana-based Sun King Brewery  for a CANlaboration project to unite the brewer’s friendship and passion for pushing the boundaries of craft beer in a can.   Brewers from Oskar Blues and Sun King made the trek to each others breweries for months, and are excited to bring you CHAKA, a limited-release Belgian-style ale — the first craft beer to be packaged in the Alumi-Tek^® re-sealable pint bottle from Ball Corporation. CHAKA will be released May 3^rd 2012 at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego in each attendee’s hotel room and at special events throughout the weekend (see below!).   The following week the brewers will make limited quantities available at the Oskar Blues Tasty Weasel Taproom and in Sun King’s home market.

The connection between these two breweries is deeper than the fact that they both can their beer. Our head brewer, Dave Chichura, began his professional brewing career in Indianapolis fifteen years ago where he became friends with Dave Colt and Clay Robinson, the two brewers who created Sun King. The three friends have been talking for years about working together on a collaborative beer, so when the opportunity came to assist in the introduction of a new packaging option for craft beer, it was an easy fuh-CAN-yea!

The end result is an 8 percent A.B.V. Belgian-style ale crafted with a blend of ingredients from each brewery’s home state: Shagbark Hickory syrup from Hickoryworks in Trafalgar, Ind.; grain from Colorado Malting Company; and a special yeast blend from Brewing Science Institute, also in Colorado. Brewers from both breweries worked together to formulate the recipe and traveled between Colorado and Indiana to brew at both locations.

Clay from Sun King weighed in on the brew: “Until we undertook this project, only large breweries and beverage companies had access to this type of packaging. Sun King and Oskar Blues worked closely with the Ball Corporation and Cask Brewing Systems to design and build a simple, functional small scale system that will allow craft brewers to take advantage of this unique packaging option.”

And our marketing dude, Chad Melis, threw in his 2-cents: “Unique packaging like the Alumi-Tek bottle provides both Oskar Blues and Sun King the differentiation we need to make our limited-release beers and B.Stiff & Sons Old Fashioned Root Beer (Oskar Blues Brewery) distinct from our core lines. Craft beer in aluminum bottles is another step forward in the evolution of craft beer.”

Available for purchase at the Tasty Weasel Taproom, for $17.50 a 4-pack.  You can also get your hands on CHAKA and meet the brewers from both breweries at a few events taking place during this weeks Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego:

Oskar Blues Events at Craft Brewers Conference 2012 – San Diego

Wednesday May 2^nd 9pm – CAN Diego CBC Opening Night After Party – Featuring Canned Craft Beer from 6 Industry leading Breweries at the BLIND LADY ALE HOUSE

Thursday May 3^rd 7pm – CHAKA After Party – CHAKA plus Barrel Aged offerings from Oskar Blues Brewery at the TIPSY CROW

More pics on our Facebook page here!

Lou, our new beertender from upstate New York, has been missing home sumpin’ fierce & who are we to deny him the finer things of his home state? He’s invited John from Brewery Ommegang, the top Belgian-style brewery in the US, to come to Oskar Blues in Longmont on Thursday, February 9th to talk about the old country & sample some of Ommegang’s best beers.

Ommegang’s bringing 3 Philosophers, Seduction, Adoration, & Hennepin & we hope you’ll love getting all four of these great beers in one place at one time. You can also sample the likes of Oskar Blues’s Red Eye Rye Pale Ale, Columbian Supreme Coffee Porter & Deviant Dale’s IPA (all three only available at Oskar Blues at this time).

It’s all going down at 6PM on February 9th at Oskar Blues Homemade Liquids & Solids at 1555 S Hover Rd in Longmont. Corner of Hover Rd & the Diagonal Highway.

A lot happened around here in 2011- we announced the opening of our sustainable Hops & Heifers Farm, began building our own bikes with REEB Cycles (www.REEBcycles.com), rolled out our Bonewagon Food Truck, and posted a 40% increase in national beer sales.

We grew from 42,000 barrels in 2010 to 59,000 barrels in 2011 — the 17,000 barrel increase is nearly equal to what we produced in 2008- thanks to you guys!

Why do we have so much going on, and what does all of this have to do with craft beer in a CAN? Dale commented that “the farm, the bikes, the music are all an extension of what this is all about; doing what you love. It’s important to stay hands-on and passionate. We just hope everyone has as much fun with it as we do.”

In addition to all of the CANdimonium listed above, we just doubled-down our commitment to providing you with more beer with a $4 million  brewery-improvement project. What’re we adding to the brewery? Fourteen 200-barrel fermenters, two 400-barrel bright beer tanks, and a new canning line that will allow us to double our canning speed (300 cans per minute!) and send some 16oz cans your way (Deviant Dale’s IPA  in 16oz cans is coming out mid-March!).

For those who haven’t had the chance to try Deviant yet, it’s been a restaurant favorite for the past few years, and took silver at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival in the American-Style IPA category, the most competitive category in the history of the event, with 176 entries. Mama’s Little Yella Pils also won a silver and “Best in Class” in the Bohemian Pilsener category, and Old Chub Scotch Ale was awarded a bronze metal in the Scotch Ale category.

We’re excited about this last year, and want all of you to know that we couldn’t have done it without you, our loyal fans who make our dream possible! Thanks for all of the Oskar Blues love you share with the world. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Highlights:

Unveiling of THE BONE WAGON, our new Barnstormin’ Smokateria on Wheels where you can get some Rubs & Tugs such as Voodoo Bone Smokin’ Wings and a  Hops & Heifers Farm Burger with all the fixins.

HAND CAN your own Oskar Blues specialty brew using our ORIGINAL canner- free when you buy a 6-pack of HGH Part DUH from the Tasty Weasel. Available only at the brewery, while supplies last.

Play in our BrewSkee Ball Tournament for a chance to win 2 ski tickets, a $50 gift card to our restaurants, or a $25 gift card to the Tasty Weasel

Catch a brewery tour, Jam out to some live music, Enjoy all of our beers, as well as some specialties

And, if you’re feeling extra ambitious, join the Bicycle Longmont Cruiser Ride from Dickens Tavern in Downtown Longmont to the brewery. Best lit-up bike wins a gift card to the Oskar Blues restaurants! Riders leave at 6pm.

AND, if you’re feeling extra giving, bring in an old bike to donate to Bicycle Longmont’s Holiday Bike Program. For each bike you donate, you get a free PINT.

CANniversary cake-cutting at 7:30pm

.

In addition to the cover article on P. 16 & 17, Oskar Blues was the featured story on P.52 in the Innovation Packaging article by Andrew Kaplan titled “Pedal to the Metal.”  Here is an excerpt:

“The results of the can have been astounding.  The company has seen the public take to its canned brews – often after a little hesitation – and Oskar Blues’ sales have skyrocketed as a result.  Even in 2009, global financial apocalypse and all, the Canned Beer Apocalypse has continued unabated.  Oskar Blues saw a whopping 83.7 percent increase in shipments.  In fact, in each of the past seven years, the company has experienced double-digit growth.  But last year was its biggest leap: 29,000 barrels produced compared to 17,000 in 2008.”

Check out the Inauguration video below…

Inauguration of the initial batch of GUBNA Imperial IPA from Chad Melis on Vimeo.