LONGMONT, CO—Jake Smith, A.K.A, The White Buffalo, took a break from promoting his new album, “Shadows, Greys & Evil Ways,” to stop by the original Oskar Blues brewery in Lyons, CO to brew a batch of “The White Buffalo West Coast IPA”—a sessionable, hop-filled collaboration brew concocted after the California-based musician’s favorite style of beer.
“I’m a beer drinker,” said Smith, who together with a team of Oskar Blues brewers created a light-bodied, heavily-hopped West Coast-style White IPA featuring Centennial, Simcoe, and Galaxy hops. “I mostly drink IPAs, that’s why I wanted to create something light but hoppy. As a beer drinker, that’s what I’m drawn to.”
Fans of both The White Buffalo and Oskar Blues can stop by the brewery’s website for a FREE exclusive download of “Don’t You Want It” from the Buffalo’s latest album. Fans can also check out behind-the-scenes footage from Smith’s brew day in August, which ended with a surprise performance at the Tasty Weasel tap room. Check out the behind the scenes video via the Oskar Blues YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19bMOuPSVjE and visithttp://www.oskarblues.com/dont-you-want-it-the-white-buffalo to for the exclusive FREE download.
Fresh off of his latest album release on September 10, Smith will get the chance to drink a pint of his collaborative brewing efforts when he lands in Colorado to headline Oskar Blues’ two-day beer and music-centric festival happening in downtown Denver. FBAG – Fuh-CAN Beer and Guitars (www.fbagblowout.com ) will take over Sculpture Park all dayFriday (Oct. 11) and all day Saturday (Oct. 12) of the Great American Beer Festival where “The White Buffalo West Coast IPA” will be served with a slew of Oskar Blues beers as well a variety of craft brews from a handful of other local breweries.
FBAG – a joint party hosted by Oskar Blues Brewery and Denver-based non-profit—Love, Hope, Strength will feature full-day line-ups of a mix of local and national bands currently rockin’ the live music circuit. Smith, with full band in tow, will headline festivities on Friday night, following performances by local bands—Interstate Stash Express, Bonnie and the Clyde’s, Musketeer Gripweed and Jeff Brinkman. Kyle Hollingsworth of The String Cheese Incident will close the party down on Saturday night after Denver favorites, The Congress, and other local bands hit the outdoor stage.
Craft beer lovers in town for the Great American Beer Festival can listen to some tunes while they drink ColoRADo-made craft beers and munch on a range of menu items from three of Oskar Blues’ restaurant locations—the original Lyons-based Grill & Brew, and Longmont’s CHUBurger and soon-to-be-opened CyclHops—a bike cantina and home of REEB Cycles retail location set to open at the end of the year.
And if drinking beers and catching some killer live music isn’t enough—a portion of the ticket sales from the event will be split between the Love, Hope, Strength Foundation (www.lovehopestrength.org )and the Oskar Blues CAN’d Aid Foundation’s Colorado Flood Relief Fund. (http://foundation.oskarblues.com/.)
“The White Buffalo West Coast IPA” will be flowing both days at FBAG – Fuh-CAN Beer and Guitars, but craft beer lovers roaming the streets of downtown Denver next week can also grab a pint at the following locations:
Stoney’s Bar and Grill
Lucky Pie Pizza and Taphouse
Rackhouse Pub
Freshcraft
Historians Ale House
Ale House at Amato’s
The Hornet
Blake Street Tavern
Star Bar
For more information visit: http://www.oskarblues.com/ or http://fbagblowout.com/.
About Oskar Blues Brewery
Founded by Dale Katechis in 1997 as a brewpub and grill, Oskar Blues Brewery launched its craft-brewed beer canning operations in 2002 in Lyons, CO. It was the first American craft brewery to brew and hand-can its beer. Today there are more than 200 craft breweries canning beer. The original crew used a hand-canning line on a tabletop machine that sealed one can at a time. Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont packaged 59,000 in 2011 and grew to 85,750 in 2012 while opening an additional brewery in Brevard, NC, in late 2012.
BREVARD, NC—Oskar Blues Brewery is breaking boundaries once again by sponsoring driver Landon Cassill and his JD Motorsports with Gary Keller team in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Cassill will pilot the No. 4 Oskar Blues Brewery Chevrolet at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Dollar General 300 on Friday, October 11.
“It’s so cool to have a craft beer sponsor, especially Oskar Blues Brewery. Craft beer fits so well with our sport, which is casual and accessible,” says Cassill. “This feels like a great partnership because our team is a lot like this brewery—we’re a homegrown race team working really hard to break through.”
This partnership will be the first of its kind for the craft brewery industry, featuring Oskar Blues Brewery brands on the racecar and fire suit. The No.4 Oskar Blues Brewery Chevrolet Camaro will sport the colors of the brewery’s thirst-quenching All-American made beers in a can: Dale’s Pale Ale and Mama’s Little Yella Pils.
“Oskar Blues Brewery is built on following our passions, whether it’s putting beer in a can or being the first craft brewery to sponsor NASCAR. We love blazing our own trail,” says Neal Price, Head of Racing Development at Oskar Blues Brewery.
Oskar Blues, the first craft beer in racing, also currently sponsors a Super Late Model, a Mod Coupe and two Sprint Cars that compete at tracks across the country. In addition, Oskar Blues is an official track sponsor at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Oskar Blues Founder Dale Katechis says: “We just like getting after it and being competitive. Whether it’s our complex and challenging beers, the aggressive mountain bikes our bike company makes, or going to the race track…speed is in our blood (www.reebcycles.com).”
Cassill, a 24-year-old from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has several years of experience in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS). He has a best finish of third in the NNS.
In celebration of this partnership, Cassill will make an appearance at the Oskar Blues Brewery Tap Takeover at Carolina Ale House on Wednesday, October 9, in Concord. He will be greeting fans and signing autographs starting at 6:30 p.m. Cassill also will make an appearance at the Oskar Blues Party Box in the Fan Zone at CMS on Saturday afternoon, October 12.
Dale’s Pale Ale and Mama’s Little Yella Pils are the only craft beers available throughout Carolina Motor Speedway—at the Super Speedway, the Speedway Club, zMax Dragway and The Dirt Track, as well as The Party Box in the Fan Zone.
]]>LONGMONT, CO—Since their inception in 1997, the folks at Oskar Blues have been committed to giving back to the communities in which their businesses grow and thrive. Over the years, the Oskar Blues Brewery and restaurants have provided support to those in need by organizing a variety of solutions like canned food and clothing drives at each of their locations during the holidays, to making monetary donations to local organizations. “With just one point-in-time donation to our organization, Oskar Blues fed 5,000 people. Successful businesses can make a huge difference to the communities they live in,” said Edwina Salazar, executive director of the OUR Center.
For Oskar Blues’ owner/founder, Dale Katechis, helping people and giving back to the community is something that Oskar Blues has always been engaged in. In September of 2013, Katechis created the “Oskar Blues CAN’d Aid Foundation” to allow that engagement to expand at a local and national level. “It’s been a 15 year mission for me to organize a way to give back to the communities that helped build our businesses,” Katechis said.
Although the “CAN’d Aid Foundation” will develop national partnerships in a variety of focus areas including outdoor recreation, arts and music, and environmental sustainability, the foundation’s immediate focus will be on maximizing fundraising efforts for the expedited distribution of monies to the communities of Lyons and Longmont, CO; two areas that recently experienced massive devastation during severe flooding that struck the Front Range of Colorado. Many Oskar Blues employees, friends and family of the company were severely impacted by the floods, and Katechis’ main goal is to support immediate recovery efforts for those affected in both communities.
Diana Ralston, the executive director of the “CAN’d Aid Foundation” echoed Katechis’ sentiments about flood relief efforts, stating, “at Oskar Blues, our community is our family, and the recent massive flooding along the Front Range left a lot of our Colorado family members without homes, without towns, and in desperate need of help getting back on their feet. Fast-tracking our 501(c)(3) allows us to be a part of a long-term strategy to provide help to areas damaged by the flooding.”
With Ralston at the helm, several Oskar Blues fundraising opportunities are in place to support flood relief efforts at the local level.
Put a CAN’d Aid on it. Monetary donations can be made in the form of a check or online at http://www.foundation.oskarblues.com
Oskar Blues CAN’d Aid Foundation
Attn: Oskar Blues Flood Relief Fund
1800 Pike Road
Longmont, CO 80501
Through the week of the Great American Beer Festival (September 22 through October 13), all Oskar Blues locations including Homemade Liquids and Solids, CHUBurger, and the Tasty Weasel tap rooms (Colorado and North Carolina) are donating $1 from every Oskar Blues brew purchased.
REEB Cycles, Oskar Blues’ bike company, is donating $200 from every frame or complete bike sold during the month of October.
Oskar Blues will also hype up flood relief fundraising efforts during the week of the Great American Beer Festival by donating a portion of the proceeds from the FBAG- Beer and Guitars, two-day festival in Sculpture Park in downtown Denver to the Oskar Blues Flood Relief Fund. The festival thrown in collaboration with the Love, Hope, Strength Foundation, will feature live music by 18 bands including The White Buffalo, The Kyle Hollingsworth Band, Bonnie and the Clyde’s, The Congress, and many more to be announced via http://fbagblowout.com/
]]>Oskar Blues Brewery and Auburn University have forged a historic partnership to create a new graduate-level certificate in Brewing Science and Operations. Dale Katechis, founder of Oskar Blues, is a legacy alumnus of Auburn. Dale, his dad, and his older brother all matriculated at the Alabama university.
“It feels really special to be creating this brewing science program in the place where I brewed my first batch of home brew,” Dale said. “It’s like coming home.” Dale’s first ever beer, which would eventually become the award-winning, best-selling Dale’s Pale Ale, was brewed in a bathtub during his time at Auburn.
Martin O’Neill, head of the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Management in the College of Human Sciences, expects the university and state to benefit greatly from addressing the popularity of craft brewing across the Southeast and the country.
“The interest in craft brewing is exploding right now, much like the wine industry,” he said. “Tourism is even being linked to beer breweries because of a growing demand for better beer by a better traveled public.”
According to the Brewer’s Association, craft brewers provide more than 100,000 jobs in the U.S. and the industry is growing by double digits each year.
Up until now, students and professionals interested in learning about the science of brewing and best operations had to travel to California, Chicago or overseas.
“Our program is designed to provide people, who already have a bachelor’s degree and an interest in brewing, with the necessary educational background to develop their skill base and upon graduation, to sit for the professional certification exams with the industry’s lead certification agency, the Institute of Brewing and Distilling,” Martin said.
The new program is a collaborative effort between the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Hospitality Management and the colleges of veterinary medicine, business, and agriculture at Auburn. Courses cover topics such as soils, malting, mashing, fermentation, brewing, business and beverages.
While courses are offered entirely online, Martin said teaming up with one of the nation’s leading craft breweries will bridge the gap between traditional online learning and the real world of brewing. Noah Tuttle, head brewer at Oskar Blues North Carolina brewery, is helping develop the brew science teaching team curriculum. “We want to offer the practical, hands-on side of brewing. They need real experienced brewers to make the program successful,” he said. “Part of the plan will be to offer students a three-day intensive training at the brewery.”
The doors of Oskar Blues will be open always in order to expose students to best brewing practices, as well as to the brewery’s unique and innovative business approach.
Since January 2013, Oskar Blues Brewery has partnered with Blue Ridge Community College on a series of brewing courses that include extensive hands-on in-brewery learning, and cover all aspects of the business. Five current employees of the brewery were hired after completing one of the Blue Ridge Brew School classes.
The idea behind the brewing certificate at Auburn isn’t to promote craft brewing among undergraduates – in fact they can’t even enroll in the courses – but Martin said it’s rather to teach commercial beer brewers and others interested in joining the growing business sector how to develop higher quality products and how to market and distribute them successfully.
The course will be ready to roll out by the fall of 2014.
“When I look five years down the road, I see this as the premiere brewing school in the nation,” Noah said.
Dale and Noah are visiting Auburn this week for the first home game of the season. Here’s what they’ll be up to:
FRIDAY PRE-GAME ON 8/30
Join the Oskar Blues crew on Friday at The Hound from 7 to 9 p.m. for 19.2 stovepipe cans of Dale’s Pale Ale and Mama’s Little Yella Pils on the patio and several OB drafts at the main bar.
SATURDAY MAIN EVENT ON 8/31
Dale and the Oskar Blues crew will be tailgating under Oskar Blues tents next to Spidle Hall on Mell St. They’ll be cooking up beer can chicken and handing out Oskar Blues swag.
About Oskar Blues Brewery
Founded by Dale Katechis in 1997 as a brewpub and grill, Oskar Blues Brewery launched its craft-brewed beer canning operations in 2002 in Lyons, Colo. It was the first American craft brewery to brew and can its beer. Today there are more than 200 craft breweries canning beer. The original crew used a hand-canning line on a tabletop machine that sealed one can at a time. Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont packaged 59,000 in 2011 and grew to 85,750 in 2012 while opening an additional brewery in Brevard, NC, in late 2012.
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BREVARD, NC—Oskar Blues is pumped to announce the release of the first batch of the award-winning Ten FIDY Imperial Stout from the East Coast brewery. This much-anticipated seasonal brew is now fermenting in the tanks at both the ColoRADo and NC locations. It’ll be released at parties at both Tasty Weasel Tap Rooms and distributed to all 32 states where Oskar Blues is sold.
Less than nine months after the first North Carolina brew bubbled, the brewers have recreated all seven of Oskar Blues’ regular line-up of beers, finishing with the much-anticipated, highly-coveted Ten FIDY (10.5 percent ABV).
This supremely full-bodied seasonal, that has bulldozed beer connoisseurs, will be available at your favorite watering hole or retailer earlier than ever this year—in September—thanks, in part, to the new(ish) brewery. Following the successful release of our spring seasonal, GUBNA, the FIDY will be available until February 2014 (or until it sells out), making it a perfect holiday gift beer. Stay tuned, as Oskar Blues plans to brew up a brand new seasonal in 2014 to be sold between the GUBNA and Ten FIDY releases!
The Brevard Ten FIDY release party takes place on Thursday, August 29, 2013, at the NC Tasty Weasel. Come taste the first NC FIDY, plus another special Ten FIDY tap. The night includes a chili cook-off with brewery judges (bring extra chili to share), music from This Mountain, a rockin’ folk band from East Tennessee, Ten FIDY corn hole, and special T-shirts featuring the “First in FIDY” license plate.
Western North Carolinians who visit the brewery will be among the lucky first tasters of this uniquely crafted brew, with its inimitable flavors of chocolate-covered caramel and coffee that hide the hefty 98 IBUs underneath a smooth blanket of malt.
The Longmont Ten FIDY release party will happen on Friday, August 30, 2013, at the ColoRADo Tasty Weasel Tap Room. The night’s offerings will feature a vertical tasting of FIDY from years past, plus a barrel-aged FIDY, a firkin of FIDY Pale, and a Nitro Smidy. Because if its hefty ABV, FIDY is uniquely cellarable and gets bought up and stored by beer geeks nationwide. The nectar becomes even more smooth with age.
An Asheville Ten FIDY release party will take place at Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria on Tuesday, September 3, 2013. Keep an eye out for other bars and restaurants celebrating the return of this boundary-busting brew.
Ten FIDY is a super-strong beer that takes strength to make. This brew is made with an enormous amount of two-row malt, chocolate malt, roasted barley, flaked oats and hops. Ten FIDY’s nearly 5000-pound grain bill is just short of 50 percent specialty malts, which are packaged in 55-lb bags and loaded into the mills by hand. The many bags of oats are poured directly into the mash tuns. The oats and rice hulls have to be lugged up 20-odd stairs to the top of the brew-decks.
“Brewing Ten FIDY is unlike any of the other beers we make. We have to mash-in two batches just to get one kettle filled because we only take the most concentrated wort from each mash. It’s a very time consuming and labor intensive process. This is part of how we make Ten FIDY so unique, rich, and complex,” says Brevard head brewer Noah Tuttle.
Ten FIDY is packaged in 12-ounce CANS and sold in 4-pack carriers, as well as on draft at craft beer retailers, growler fill shops, restaurant, bars and more.
About Oskar Blues Brewery
Founded by Dale Katechis in 1997 as a brewpub and grill, Oskar Blues Brewery launched its craft-brewed beer canning operations in 2002 in Lyons, Colo. It was the first American craft brewery to brew and hand-can its beer. Today there are more than 200 craft breweries canning beer. The original crew used a hand-canning line on a tabletop machine that sealed one can at a time. Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont packaged 59,000 in 2011 and grew to 85,750 in 2012 while opening an additional brewery in Brevard, NC, in late 2012.
]]>LONGMONT, CO—What’s the big Ordeal?
For the third year in a row, Oskar Blues Brewery is offering “Oskar Blues Ordeal” bus trips during Great American Beer Festival week. Ordealers get special behind-the-scenes adventures at all of our OB party spots—and, of course, lots of great craft beer and amazing nosh.
We’re throwing Ordeal events Wednesday, Oct. 9, Thursday, Oct. 10, and Friday, Oct. 11.
The OB trolley will pick you up outside of the Falling Rock Tap House in Denver and take you to our digs in Longmont and Lyons. We’ll even get all ColoRADo on ya at our Hops and Heifers Farm. Each Ordeal includes classic and specialty Oskar Blues beers all day, and off-the charts barbecue and Americana meals throughout the day.
Here are the deets for each day:
Wednesday, October 9 - $100 round-trip ticket
Oskar Blues Ordeal and Hops and Heifers Barn Burner Pig Roast – 11 a.m. – 9 p.m.
The Ordeal kicks off Wednesday with Ten FIDY Handshakes at the newest Oskar Blues restaurant, CHUBurger. From there, we’re serving up a Cajun-style lunch at Oskar Blues Homemade Liquids and Solids and buying you two 10 oz. Oskar Blues beers, but feel free to try any of the 43 craft beers on draft. A backstage tour of Oskar Blues Brewery and more beers will happen at the Tasty Weasel tap room, then it’s time for the main event. To kick off the Great American Beer Festival in style, we’re throwing a Barn Burner and Pig Roast at the Hops and Heifers Farm that will include live music, plenty of food, specialty beers, a bonfire and ridiculously awesome views of the Flatirons from 5-8 p.m. Wednesday’s Ordeal starts at 11 a.m., and we’ll drop you back outside of the Falling Rock Tap House at 9 p.m. Reserve your spot(s) here: http://obordealandbarnburner.eventbrite.com/
Thursday, October 10 - $75 round trip-ticket
Oskar Blues Ordeal Tour – 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
We’re hitting all the Oskar Blues stops on Thursday, and starting the tour off at our Grill & Brew brewpub in Lyons, the place where our beer began. Enjoy Steak and Egg Breakfast Burritos and our specialty Coffee Stout (the breakfast of champions) and we’ll show you around the original Oskar Blues Brewery where we’re still pumping out specialty OB brews and our B. Stiff & Sons craft root beer. 19.2 oz. cans of Dale’s Pale Ale and Mama’s Little Yella Pils will quench your thirst as we next give you a tour around Hops and Heifers Farm. Then a barbecue lunch and a cold Oskar Blues beer at Homemade Liquids and Solids Restaurant is on tap, and we’re rounding out the trip with a VIP tour of the Oskar Blues Brewery before we shuttle you back to the Falling Rock Tap House just in time to hit the first session of the GABF. Reserve your spot(s) here: http://oskarbluesordealtour.eventbrite.com/
Friday, October 11 - $100 round-trip ticket
Oskar Blues Ordeal and Gospel Brunch – 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Back by popular demand, the highly praised Gospel Brunch, held in the hop rows at our Hops and Heifers Farm, is the first stop on the Friday Ordeal. Confess your sins to our preacher and get down to a Southern-style brunch paired with specialty Oskar Blues beers and some soul-saving live music. Grab a beer and check out the 43 craft beers on draft at Homemade Liquids and Solids next, and finish the trip with a VIP brewery tour of the Oskar Blues Brewery and Tasty Weasel Tap Room. We’ll get you back to the Falling Rock Tap House with enough time to catch your breath and make it over to the Convention Center.
http://oskarbluesordealandgospelbrunch.eventbrite.com/
Please contact [email protected] for questions, more information.
About Oskar Blues Brewery
Founded by Dale Katechis in 1997 as a brewpub and grill, Oskar Blues Brewery launched its craft-brewed beer canning operations in 2002 in Lyons, Colo. It was the first American craft brewery to brew and hand-can its beer. Today there are more than 200 craft breweries canning beer. The original crew used a hand-canning line on a tabletop machine that sealed one can at a time. Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont packaged 59,000 in 2011 and grew to 85,750 in 2012 while opening an additional brewery in Brevard, NC, in late 2012.
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The cover of the September 2013 issue of All About Beer Magazine.
Chief Oshkosh Red Lager was about to go national. It had found a distribution and marketing partner, and was ready to bust out of Wisconsin. Jeff Fulbright, the founder and president of the brewing company behind Chief Oshkosh, Mid-Coast Brewing, excitedly placed the beer in a spectrum that showed both his ambition and confidence.
“The West Coast has Anchor Steam beer, and the East Coast has Samuel Adams beer,” Fulbright said in a statement. “Through this union, we have created a company that has the strength to distinguish our line of beers as a dominant Midwestern representative of the rapidly growing microbeer segment.”
The idea for Fulbright’s company was born of the larger craft beer movement in the late 1980s and 1990s, right before it entered its period of greatest growth. Information still traveled primarily over the telephone or by word of mouth; and it was at a Great American Beer Festival in Denver in the late 1980s that Fulbright ran into Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Co., which itself had gone national a few years before.
Fulbright, then in his mid-30s, with bushy brown hair and a moustache to match, told Koch of his idea to revive the Chief Oshkosh brand in his native Wisconsin. He had checked on the trademark: It was available. The beer had been brewed until 1971 by the Oshkosh Brewing Co., one of many regionals that collapsed amid the post-World War II consolidation in the brewing industry.
Oshkosh Brewing itself had been formed by the 1894 consolidation of three Oshkosh-based breweries nervous about competition from Schlitz and Pabst in nearby Milwaukee, according to Lee Reiherzer of the Oshkosh Beer blog, who first tracked down Fulbright’s story.
Koch suggested that Fulbright brew Chief Oshkosh under contract at an existing brewery, which was what Koch himself was doing for his fast-selling Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Fulbright took Koch’s suggestion back to the Midwest, where he studied brewing at the Siebel Institute in Chicago and incorporated the Mid-Coast Brewing Co. in May 1991.
Its signature beer would be a red lager that Fulbright devised at Siebel and brewed at the Stevens Point Brewery, a regional 70 miles northwest of Oshkosh.
Chief Oshkosh Red Lager hit the local Milwaukee market in 1991, retailing for $3.99 a six-pack. Fulbright lined up coverage on three TV stations in Wisconsin as well as in the consumer and trade media. He reached out to legendary critic Michael Jackson personally as well as to this magazine—Jackson praised the beer for an “unapologetic, robust sweetness” and All About Beer said it was “just delightful.” Distributors signed on, and by the end of 1992, Chief Oshkosh would spread statewide, with those plans to go national following quickly after.
The craft beer was already a hit, when, on June 17, 1991, a Monday, Fulbright hosted a formal unveiling for about 45 people at the Oshkosh Hilton. He and volunteers poured the red lager from cans.
That’s right: cans.
Surprised?
You’re forgiven. The history of canning in American craft beer is drenched in myths. For instance, ask most industry experts, including the brewers themselves, and they would date the advent of craft-beer canning to late 2002, when Dale Katechis decided to can all his Oskar Blues brands, particularly his signature Dale’s Pale Ale. Oskar Blues, out of tiny Lyons, CO, is considered to be the first American craft brewery to can its own beers.
But it wasn’t the first American craft beer sold in a can. (And it wasn’t the first in North America, for that matter, to can its own beers, with that honor belonging to Yukon Gold in Canada’s Yukon Territory in 2001.) Chief Oshkosh Red Lager predates Dale’s Pale Ale by 11 years, as do at least four other domestic offerings: Pete’s Summer Brew from Pete’s Brewing, Wisconsin Amber from Capital Brewery, Brewski Brewing’s Brewski Beer and Iron Range Amber Ale from James Page Brewing—all hit shelves, either regionally or nationally, before 1999, though each was canned on contract by larger companies.
For Fulbright, the decision to can in 1991 was purely economic, and he was not aware that he was unique in craft beer. “I just saw it was the only means to an end because, well, I won’t say how little money we started with,” Fulbright told All About Beer in April. He estimates that the total was “way under $100,000.”
His decision to can might have saved him an estimated penny per ounce, according to a source familiar with beer packaging. Canning manufacturers, then and now, typically demand minimum orders of several thousand cans. Fulbright was soon producing 2,000 barrels annually—or roughly 660,000 12-ounce cans. He poured the savings from canning into marketing as well as into ingredients that were rare, even for craft beer, including Belgian Caramunich malt, which gave Chief Oshkosh its reddish hue.
Chief Oshkosh would not survive the decade, doomed by a distribution battle with Miller, which by 1993 was aggressively pushing a red lager through Leinenkugel, the Wisconsin regional it acquired five years before. Fulbright’s distribution would grow to 13 states, but it wasn’t enough: In 1994, Mid-Coast Brewing and the last cans of Chief Oshkosh disappeared from shelves. Most of the other craft beer brands in cans would also fold before or soon after the turn of the century under similar pressure brought on in large part by the national breweries (only Capital Brewery remains).
That left Oskar Blues, starting in 2002, to loose the ongoing trend of craft brewers, small and large, canning their beers. The number of craft breweries canning at least some of their beers has increased at least 28,400 percent in the last decade. The biggest addition to this canning roster came in February, when Boston Beer Co. announced it would begin canning its iconic Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
The announcement, however, by chairman Jim Koch, Jeff Fulbright’s informal adviser all those years ago, only added to the myths about craft beer in cans.
The Big Line
Koch’s announcement was front-page news in The Boston Globe. The Feb. 17 article began by framing the decision to can in revolutionary terms—with a capital R: “The project’s code name—Bunker Hill—hinted at the formidable challenge Boston Beer Co. faced: could the craft brewery that revolutionized American beer put its Sam Adams lager in a can without sacrificing the taste millions of consumers expect with every sip?”
Koch’s main concern about canning, according to the article, was that the metal might ruin the taste of his beer, never mind harm consumers’ health. It’s a concern that has dogged canned beer for decades. Fulbright confronted it from retailers and consumers in the early 1990s, and Katechis faced the same questions a decade later.
While some consumers say they taste a difference between canned and bottled beers, the science suggests any difference is in their heads.
Aluminum cans, for one, have been lined for decades with a coating between the metal and liquid. Ball Corp., the nation’s largest can manufacturer and Boston Beer’s partner on its new can, said through a spokesman that it and other manufacturers have been lining since “at least back to 1970 or so for aluminum cans when they were introduced, and even earlier for steel beverage cans.”
Had aluminum cans lacked such lining, it’s unlikely canned beer—canned anything, really—would have taken hold in the marketplace: Over time, the aluminum would have poisoned one consumer after another. As it stands, hundreds of millions have consumed beer from aluminum cans and lived to tell about it.
“The mythology is that cans used to suck because they didn’t have lining and now cans are lined,” said Jaime Gordon, technical sales representative for canning-machine manufacturer Cask Brewing Systems. “It’s a misperception—cans have always been lined. If they weren’t lined you wouldn’t be able to drink out of them.”
Controlled studies have further shown the lack of aluminum seepage into beer. In March 2008, the Health Ministry of Canada, where canned craft beer was born, examined the presence of bisphenol A (BPA) in different canned beers, including Stella Artois and Heineken (though no American craft-beer brands). BPA is an industrial chemical often used in the lining of metal cans as well as plastic containers like water bottles. Too much BPA can be unhealthy, especially for infants.
The Canadian study concluded that aluminum cans allowed minuscule amounts of BPA to seep into beer, not enough to be unhealthy, suggesting that modern cans keep aluminum out of beer but that the lining keeping it out stays away, too. In fact, the same study showed higher amounts of BPA in some canned soft drinks like Diet 7Up and Mountain Dew than in the canned beers.
Still, the myth persists that aluminum affects the beer—and that the single biggest technical, never mind mental, leap for any craft brewer wishing to can remains separating metal from beer.
“A lot of times people say, ‘Oh, yeah, they’ve got these new cans, with new lining,’” said Brian O’Reilly, brewmaster at Sly Fox Brewery in Pottstown, PA, which in April became the first craft brewery to sell beer in cans with completely removal tops, a technology from Crown Holdings Inc. “It’s not like craft breweries jumped on canning just because the lining was good; it’s always been good.”
Green and Green
To hear an early pioneer like Katechis tell it, or a relative latecomer like Koch, the decision to can for a craft brewer arises largely with two goals in mind.
The first is consumer mobility. That is, craft brewers want their customers to be able to cart their brands to the softball diamond, the campground, the shore and other places where glass can be problematic. Here was then-Oskar Blues brewmaster Brian Lutz in a Modern Brewery Age Q-and-A shortly after the 2002 launch of canned Dale’s Pale Ale: Cans “make it easier for outdoor enthusiasts to take great beer into the back country, in the canoe, the ski pack, anywhere they want to.” And here was The Boston Globe in 2013 on Koch’s announcement: “[T]he plans are to roll out cans of Sam’s Boston Lager and Summer Ale in time for beach-cooler weather.”
However concerned craft brewers might be for consumers’ beer mobility, the single greatest driver of the canning trend has been what drove Jeff Fulbright’s decision more than 20 years ago: economics. Once the right equipment came along, it proved a lot cheaper for craft brewers to can than to bottle.
In 1999, Calgary, Alberta-based Cask Brewing Systems introduced a small, manual machine that could can two 12-ounce beers; it cost no more than $10,000 at a time when even used canning machines routinely sold in the six figures. The machine was originally aimed at brew-on-premises retailers; when that trend fizzled, Cask turned to craft brewers. Oskar Blues was its first American client.
The brewery’s success in cans was undeniable. Its Dale’s Pale Ale bested 23 other pale ales in a blind taste test run by New York Times critic Eric Asimov in 2005; and three years before that, Oskar Blues signed a deal with Denver-based Frontier Airlines to carry Dale’s on all fights—a decision, Frontier noted, based in part on the lighter packaging. (Lest another myth arise, Oskar Blues was not the first canned craft beer carried on a domestic airline: In the late 1990s, Continental carried Pete’s Summer Brew and Northwest carried James Page.)
Consumer mobility aside, canning can affect the mobility of a distributor, which can, in turn, affect the bottom line of brewers. According to a source familiar with beer distribution, the typical truckload of 20 pallets of 12-ounce bottles translates roughly to 54 to 60 cases; 20 pallets of 12-ounce cans, however, can total 72 to 84 cases.
The second goal driving craft-canning decisions, to hear most brewers tell it, arises from environmental concerns. Cans, simply put, are easier and cheaper to recycle than bottles. And the fact that distributors are able to ship more cans at a time than bottles can cut the amount of carbon emissions associated with transporting beer.
Canning, though, does have its dark side environmentally: namely, bauxite mining to get at the mineral precursor to aluminum called alumina. Bauxite mining entails leveling large areas of land and then drilling down (or detonating down, as the surface demands) to get at the alumina.
The process is akin to strip-mining for coal. As the New Belgium Brewing Co., which began canning popular brands like Fat Tire Pale Ale in 2008, advises on its website, consumers interested in having the lowest environmental impact should “drink draft beer out of a reusable cup.”
The Greatest Myth
As of May, 2013, 285 craft brewers were canning 956 beers covering 80 styles, according to CraftCans.com, a site that tracks the trend. Lagunitas Brewing Co. was not one of them.
In an email to All About Beer, the brewery’s founder, Tony Magee, said that concerns over the environmental impact of canning—including what happens to the can linings when recycled—had contributed to his decision to not follow the trend. (He also questioned the emphasis on canning as an environmental fix when few breweries try to curb the effects of that most prevalent of greenhouse gases, which is that most copious byproduct of fermentation: carbon dioxide.)
“It’s like if someone made a blanket statement that only lager beers were truly pure,” Magee said of the cans vs. bottles environmental debate. “There’s an implication that there were impurities in ales. It’s the things that didn’t get said that were the most important elements in evaluation.”
Perhaps this is the biggest myth, then, in craft-beer canning: that the trend’s upward arc is an inevitable one. There are major holdouts—Lagunitas is the sixth-biggest craft brewery by sales volume, according to the latest Brewers Association figures. And bottling seems to be inescapably entwined with American craft beer. Two cases in point: Jeff Fulbright began bottling Chief Oshkosh Red Lager as soon as he could, in June 1992; and the man who inspired him to start his own beer line, Jim Koch, allowed Whitbread, under license, to can his cream ale sold in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 1999.
Production was “modest,” according to Boston Beer.
]]>LONGMONT, CO—Oskar Blues Brewery, the first craft brewery in the country to brew and hand-can their beer in November 2002, continued its explosive growth posting a 38 percent increase in depletions over the past six months. The Brewers Association press release announced a 13 percent industry wide volume increase during the same period, with Oskar Blues outpacing industry volume growth by 25 percent. This follows eight years of consecutive double digit growth (triple digit growth before that) which catapulted Oskar Blues to “Craft Brewer of the Year” by Beverage World Magazine in March.
Oskar Blues’ continued growth has been fueled by the addition of their Tasty Weasel Taproom & Brevard, NC brewery that began brewing in December 2012. The Oskar Blues Brevard brewery shipped more than 1.2 million cans to 15 states in the month of June labeled “Brevard, North Carolina.” The new brewery is growing to meet demand and is already on track to brew more than 50,000 barrels of beer in its first production year.
Colorado’s funky little brew-pub has grown to become the largest American craft brewery to package beer exclusively in cans, producing 85,750 barrels of beer in 2012 while climbing to 27th on the Brewers Association Top 50 Breweries list released in April.
Innovation continues to drive the brewery. Dale’s Pale Ale was released nationwide as the first American beer in the single-serve 19.2oz. “Imperial Pint” can to kick off 2013. Mama’s Little Yella Pils followed in Ball Corporation’s 19.2oz. “Imperial Pint” can in April. Arizona spring training baseball stadiums, Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater and Fillmore Auditorium along with Chicago’s House of Blues are top drivers for the new single serve package.
“Continuing to push the boundaries is what gets us up in the morning, it’s what drives us. The 19.2oz. package is a product of that drive and passion. We continue to do what we love, toss a can in your backpack for the backcountry or a grab a stovepipe (19.2oz.) at music and sport venues.” says Oskar Blues Soul-Founder Dale Katechis.
Oskar Blues also offered their “big three beers” in the new CANundrum Mix’d 12-pack of cans. The 12-pack includes four each of the multi-award-winning brews. Dale’s Pale Ale was named “Top U.S. Pale Ale” by the New York Times and called “One of the quintessentially hoppy pale ales of our time,” by BeerAdvocate.com. RateBeer.com refers to Mama’s Little Yella Pils as “like summer in a can.” Mama’s Little Yella Pils also won silver at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival while Old Chub Scotch Ale earned bronze.
]]>Wheelsucker Wheat Ale is the SKAVERY interpretation of the perfect post-ride brew: a badass traditional German Hefeweizen! Wheelsucker Wheat will be available on draft at the Avery Tap Room in Boulder and at the Ska Brewing Tap Room in Durango while supplies last.
Brewery representatives from Avery Brewing, Oskar Blues, Sierra Nevada and Ska Brewing will be on hand at the Avery Tap Room this Sunday, July 17th beginning at 2:30 PM to tap Wheelsucker Wheat Ale, watch the Tour de France and raise money for the Boulder bike charity, Community Cycles. $3 from all pints sold from 2:30 to 6PM will go directly to Community Cycles, and all are welcome to join in on the fun, grab a Wheelsucker, watch The Tour and help send off the brewer-cyclists on their journey to Durango.
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That all changed in 2002, when Dale Katechis, president of Oskar Blues Brewery, a small microbrewery in Lyons, CO, released his highly hopped Dale’s Pale Ale in cans, an historical change in how the microbreweries could go to market.
Cans offer many advantages. They afford access to venues that don’t allow bottles, such as stadiums, picnic and boating areas, ball parks, golf courses, beaches, airlines and national parks. Cans also better protect beer from light and ultra-violet damage. The lining technology of cans has also improved over the years. This is a much lighter package that saves on shipping costs. And more cans than bottles fit in most coolers or refrigerators.
Craft brewed beer in cans was made possible when Cask Brewing Systems of Calgary, Canada developed an affordable canning line for small-batch packaging.
The new canning line is inexpensive compared to a bottling operation, and can fit in a 10 by 10 square foot section of the brewery. This has allowed a nice number of micros and brewpubs to offer their beers for take-out in cans and beyond. By the end of 2006, over 25 small breweries in the United States will be packing their beer in cans.
Collectors Can, Too
This change to the industry has started a ground swell among the collectors. Here is a chance for a collector to acquire every can produced by this new technology. The distribution channels for these small brewers is not as vast as their bigger competitors, so simply by sheer numbers these cans will always be scarce.
Already some cans have started to grow in rarity. Late last year, Oskar Blues produced two commemorative cans with a very limited release: Gordon, a big double IPA; and Leroy, a brown ale. These cans were brought out just before the holidays: one had a green label; one, red. The graphics used by the micros are pushing the envelope. Top of the Hill Brewpub in Chapel Hill, NC, has two beautiful cans out on the market and the collectors have taken notice.
Last year, when Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, one of the breweries damaged was the brand new Heiner Brau Brewery of Covington, LA. This brewery had just released their kölsch beer in a can, a can which is now difficult for collectors to acquire. The Ukiah Brewery of Ukiah, CA is now packaging an organic beer in cans.
There is not a collector out there who would not give up their first born to have been around in 1935 when the first Kruger cans went on sale. Now, more than 70 years later, collectors actually get a chance to experience history in the making (and retain their first-born).
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