The original hand-canning "facility" at Oskar Blues

Oskar Blues begins brewing in Longmont

By Katherine Weadley

A batting cage to the left, a basketball hoop to the right, skateboards here and there and in the back sit big shiny metal vats full of beer-to-be. This is what the inside of the new Oskar Blues canning and brewing facility in Longmont looks like. “Our brewers are excited because they have new toys to play with,” said spokesperson Marty Jones referring to the brewing equipment and not the actual toys.

There are five brewers on hand and around a dozen employees at the 36,000 square foot Oskar Blues Longmont facility. “Some of the employees rotate between Lyons and Longmont,” said Jones.

The new brewing facility on Pike Street in Longmont officially put out its first batch of beer on Friday, April 4^th. According to Marty Jones, spokesperson for Oskar Blues the new facility will produce 30,000 barrels of beer annually and can 250 beers a minute. Last year the facility in Lyons produced 12,409. “Considering how small the Lyons facility is that’s actually an amazing amount,” he said.

A law in Colorado states that one person can’t own two breweries so Dale sold the Oskar Blues brewpub in to his wife Kristi Katechis. So now there are two Oskar Blues entities. One is the Oskar Blues Brewing Company which produces the beer in Longmont. The other is Oskar Blues Grille & Brewery which is the brew pub in Lyons. One of his long-time employees, Wayne Bowers, also owns a piece of the brew pub through profit sharing.

“I have no interest in selling Oskar Blues brew pub now or in the future. It’s the heart and soul of everything I do. I love that restaurant and hope my kids run it some day,” said Dale. Although his major brewing and canning facility is now in Longmont, Dale has no plans to stop brewing in Lyons. “By shifting the canning production to Longmont we’ll be able to make different beer in Lyons. We haven’t been able to brew some of the other beers we wanted because we’ve been so focused on producing our three canned beers: Dale’s Pale Ale; Old Chub; and Gordon’s.” Dale said.

Dale bought his original brewing facilities in Lyons from the Great Divide Brewing Company. “Now we’re going to find someone like us, who is small and wants to grow and sell them our current system in Lyons,” said Jones. “We’ll sell our current brewing facilities but buy something smaller and more efficient to use in Lyons.” Dale plans to expand the beer line in the restaurant and play around with some of the recipes. "Some of those beers could possibly become canned beers in future," said. Also in the works is an attached tasting room to the Longmont brewery. Jones said that people in Longmont don't have a place to taste Oskar Blue's beer and they've been asking for it. "Lyons already has a tasting room. It's called Oskar Blues," said Jones.

This article was published in the Redstone Review in April, 2008