Monday, February 18, 2019
Oskar Blues' Best Beer. Period.
Oskar Blues has been a national canning pioneer since 2002, released arguably the first session IPA that actually tasted like an IPA and has reeled off delicious beers in its 22 years ranging from an imperial red to a coconut Irish porter.
And that history and variety makes the following statement all the more amazing, even as it is true: Its new Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA is the best beer that the Longmont brewery ever has made.
Cloudy enough in its fireball orange color to pass for a hazy, the recently released effort has qualities similar to the hot style, from its Polynesian fruit overtones to its smooth finish with a backbite of bitterness to remind you this isn't some kind of fruit-infused IPA. But this takes all those notes several steps further, creating a brew that is nothing less than Hawaiian fruit salad with enough traditional hop kick to finish strong and create a truly unique flavor profile.
The tropical IPA — or "island vacation in a can," as one rightly could call it — is the first in a planned series of Can-O-Bliss IPAs (and, yes, the name is the worst part of this beer) that will include a hazy IPA and a Citrus IPA over the next six months. It's a nice addition from a brewery that has become one of the 10 largest craft brewers in America — a sign that it is attempting to keep things fresh without venturing too far from the hopped-to-heaven prototype that's defined its rise since the days it shocked the craft-brewing establishment by putting its Dale's Pale Ale in cans.
To be sure, Oskar Blues has produced some fantastic products in its time. Its Death By Coconut infuses that tropical fruit into a subtle but solid body in a way that allows the flavor to shine without being sticky. G'Knight, its imperial red, is a phenomenal big beer (8.7 percent ABV) specifically because it balances the malt and hop characteristics. And its also newly released Bamburana double-barrel-aged imperial stout made in collaboration with Cigar City Brewing with figs, dates and Amburana wood spirals is a dangerously easy-drinking product melding spices and the subtle hint of vanilla from its barrels.
But Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA creates a new genre in itself — one that uses Mosaic, Azaca, Galaxy, Eldorado and Idaho 7 hops to simulate the flavors of mango, guava and non-tart pineapple without adding anything artificial to the beer. It's a master class in making a bold beer that retains its hop bitterness while pulling out more new flavors than almost any offering in recent memory and, at the same time, pushing into a new, undiscovered style.
Let's hope other brewers follow Oskar Blues' lead in venturing here. And let's hope that what now is scheduled as a seasonal brew becomes year-round very quickly. It deserves that attention.
And that history and variety makes the following statement all the more amazing, even as it is true: Its new Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA is the best beer that the Longmont brewery ever has made.
Cloudy enough in its fireball orange color to pass for a hazy, the recently released effort has qualities similar to the hot style, from its Polynesian fruit overtones to its smooth finish with a backbite of bitterness to remind you this isn't some kind of fruit-infused IPA. But this takes all those notes several steps further, creating a brew that is nothing less than Hawaiian fruit salad with enough traditional hop kick to finish strong and create a truly unique flavor profile.
The tropical IPA — or "island vacation in a can," as one rightly could call it — is the first in a planned series of Can-O-Bliss IPAs (and, yes, the name is the worst part of this beer) that will include a hazy IPA and a Citrus IPA over the next six months. It's a nice addition from a brewery that has become one of the 10 largest craft brewers in America — a sign that it is attempting to keep things fresh without venturing too far from the hopped-to-heaven prototype that's defined its rise since the days it shocked the craft-brewing establishment by putting its Dale's Pale Ale in cans.
To be sure, Oskar Blues has produced some fantastic products in its time. Its Death By Coconut infuses that tropical fruit into a subtle but solid body in a way that allows the flavor to shine without being sticky. G'Knight, its imperial red, is a phenomenal big beer (8.7 percent ABV) specifically because it balances the malt and hop characteristics. And its also newly released Bamburana double-barrel-aged imperial stout made in collaboration with Cigar City Brewing with figs, dates and Amburana wood spirals is a dangerously easy-drinking product melding spices and the subtle hint of vanilla from its barrels.But Can-O-Bliss Tropical IPA creates a new genre in itself — one that uses Mosaic, Azaca, Galaxy, Eldorado and Idaho 7 hops to simulate the flavors of mango, guava and non-tart pineapple without adding anything artificial to the beer. It's a master class in making a bold beer that retains its hop bitterness while pulling out more new flavors than almost any offering in recent memory and, at the same time, pushing into a new, undiscovered style.
Let's hope other brewers follow Oskar Blues' lead in venturing here. And let's hope that what now is scheduled as a seasonal brew becomes year-round very quickly. It deserves that attention.
Labels: Cigar City Brewing, IPA, Oskar Blues, tropical IPA
Friday, January 19, 2018
What does Oskar Blues' new location bring to Denver?
When Oskar Blues announced plans to open a beer bar/restaurant/music venue in downtown Denver, it was met by resistance by some in the craft beer community, most notably folks at Falling Rock Tap House, who said it would compete against entities that had nurtured the brewery's development. Leaders of the Longmont brewery replied that they were growing, not cannibalizing patrons.
That venue, Oskar Blues Grill & Brew, officially debuted last weekend after a month-long soft opening. And as such, it's worth looking at what the facility is, as well as what it isn't.
Those who have come to know Oskar Blues only since its ascension into the 10 largest craft breweries in America may not realize it began humbly as a Lyons Cajun-style restaurant that brought in musical acts from the get-go but took two years to get the idea to make its own beer. Anyone who's visited that original location, still tucked into an outdoor shopping center, will recognize the resemblance right away in this new venue, which in many senses is food and music first and beer as a complement to those purposes.
That isn't to say that the beer is an afterthought by any stretch. Last Saturday there were 48 beers on tap - roughly half from the Oskar Blues family that includes Cigar City and Perrin Brewing, and the other half from craft or European-invested breweries, including smaller local purveyors like Odyssey, Rails End and Odd 13. The only mega-brew on the menu was the original Coors.
So, when it comes to the beer offerings, it would be hard to say that OB Grill & Brew is cutting off the oxygen from other craft-beer purveyors. Its menu, while extensive, isn't as varied as what you'll find at Falling Rock or Freschcraft or even Lucky Pie. This is clearly the place to go in downtown if you want to find Oskar Blues family rarer or seasonal offerings, from the sensational OB Death By Coconut to Perrin's 15 percent ABV No Rules, a porter rife with cinnamon, vanilla and booziness. But no other bar was striving to be the go-to Oskar Blues destination in Denver - other than its already existing RiNo Chuburger location. And having some 25 other offerings on tap hardly makes it unique in the downtown beer scene anymore.
And when it comes to food, OB Grill & Brew also is treading a different path than other beer-focused bars in the area. Euclid Hall has poutine and upscale sausages, Freshcraft has a notch-above-normal wide-ranging menu and Lucky Pie has its pizza and cheese curds. But people who want to get the likes of crab cake, crawfish etouffee or Carolina spicy-mustard ribs aren't going to be considering existing beer bars. The food is quite impressive at Oskar Blues, and it will stand on its own, but it gives beer-focused bar hoppers a slightly more ethnic and full-plated option, if that's what they're looking for.
And a music venue that offers seating for 300
plus 48 taps - well, that just isn't happening in Denver right now. Breweries themselves, particularly Ratio Beerworks and Station 26 Brewing, have become great venues for seeing certain types of bands while sipping beer. But the major concert venues as a whole aren't beer-geek magnets for their selections, and Oskar Blues has a chance to be disruptive and new in that sense.
So, no, existing beer bars shouldn't be worried about what Oskar Blues brings to the table. The high-end Great American Beer Festival tappings are not going to happen there. And the weekend beer-bar-hopping crowds are just going to have one more option, though not one that's going to such the oxygen out of everyone else. I'll still be frequenting the other spots I mentioned, some far more than I'll be hitting OB Grill & Brew.
What the new place truly offers is extensive beer list for the crowds that are prioritizing food or music above their beer and now have a more legitimate option in which they don't have to choose between hearty, high-quality food and hearty, high-quality beers. And for some people just looking for a good rack or ribs or a good concert, it may well introduce them to the idea of pairing said activity with a locally made IPA rather than watered-down swill that's trying to pass itself off as American beer.
So, welcome the new Oskar Blues venue, Denver beer community. Maybe you won't be hanging out there all the time. But it lessens the chances that, in less beer-centric crowds, you'll be forced to hang out somewhere that can offer good chow or tunes but also offers a "craft" beer menu made up entirely of breweries scavenged by Anheuser-Busch.
When Oskar Blues announced plans to open a beer bar/restaurant/music venue in downtown Denver, it was met by resistance by some in the craft beer community, most notably folks at Falling Rock Tap House, who said it would compete against entities that had nurtured the brewery's development. Leaders of the Longmont brewery replied that they were growing, not cannibalizing patrons.
That venue, Oskar Blues Grill & Brew, officially debuted last weekend after a month-long soft opening. And as such, it's worth looking at what the facility is, as well as what it isn't.Those who have come to know Oskar Blues only since its ascension into the 10 largest craft breweries in America may not realize it began humbly as a Lyons Cajun-style restaurant that brought in musical acts from the get-go but took two years to get the idea to make its own beer. Anyone who's visited that original location, still tucked into an outdoor shopping center, will recognize the resemblance right away in this new venue, which in many senses is food and music first and beer as a complement to those purposes.
That isn't to say that the beer is an afterthought by any stretch. Last Saturday there were 48 beers on tap - roughly half from the Oskar Blues family that includes Cigar City and Perrin Brewing, and the other half from craft or European-invested breweries, including smaller local purveyors like Odyssey, Rails End and Odd 13. The only mega-brew on the menu was the original Coors.
So, when it comes to the beer offerings, it would be hard to say that OB Grill & Brew is cutting off the oxygen from other craft-beer purveyors. Its menu, while extensive, isn't as varied as what you'll find at Falling Rock or Freschcraft or even Lucky Pie. This is clearly the place to go in downtown if you want to find Oskar Blues family rarer or seasonal offerings, from the sensational OB Death By Coconut to Perrin's 15 percent ABV No Rules, a porter rife with cinnamon, vanilla and booziness. But no other bar was striving to be the go-to Oskar Blues destination in Denver - other than its already existing RiNo Chuburger location. And having some 25 other offerings on tap hardly makes it unique in the downtown beer scene anymore.
And a music venue that offers seating for 300
plus 48 taps - well, that just isn't happening in Denver right now. Breweries themselves, particularly Ratio Beerworks and Station 26 Brewing, have become great venues for seeing certain types of bands while sipping beer. But the major concert venues as a whole aren't beer-geek magnets for their selections, and Oskar Blues has a chance to be disruptive and new in that sense.
What the new place truly offers is extensive beer list for the crowds that are prioritizing food or music above their beer and now have a more legitimate option in which they don't have to choose between hearty, high-quality food and hearty, high-quality beers. And for some people just looking for a good rack or ribs or a good concert, it may well introduce them to the idea of pairing said activity with a locally made IPA rather than watered-down swill that's trying to pass itself off as American beer.
So, welcome the new Oskar Blues venue, Denver beer community. Maybe you won't be hanging out there all the time. But it lessens the chances that, in less beer-centric crowds, you'll be forced to hang out somewhere that can offer good chow or tunes but also offers a "craft" beer menu made up entirely of breweries scavenged by Anheuser-Busch.
Labels: beer bars, Cigar City Brewing, Euclid Hall, Falling Rock Taphouse, Freshcraft, Lucky Pie, Oskar Blues, Perrin Brewing, Ratio Beerworks, Station 26 Brewing
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
8 Events for the 2nd Half of American Craft Beer Week
Beer events really can sneak up on you these days. Like American Craft Beer Week. Yes, the week that began Monday and runs through Sunday.
Some of you may be up to date on this celebration and may already have begun scratching events off your check list. But for those of you who, hypothetically, may be recovering from covering the brutal final month of the Colorado Legislature, haven't written a blog since early April and are just now waking up to the idea that you need to get out and enjoy the flurry of activities this week, here's a small checklist of things to do.
Thursday
• There are lots of beer-food pairings going on this week. But Joyride Brewing's 7 p.m. tasting with MouCo Cheese not only puts good beer with a great cheese company; at $15 a head, it's also one of the most affordable cheese pairings you will find.
• Cigar City ends its four-day celebration of launching in Colorado with an appropriate party at Star Bar, which has been slinging the Florida beer for years during the Great American Beer Festival. It's worth a stop between 8 and 10 p.m.
Friday
• Avery Brewing releases Reel Peel IPA, a tangerine IPA, at its Boulder County brewery starting at 11 a.m. before canning it in six-packs. I've largely resisted fruit-flavored IPAs as a fad that should go away soon. But if anyone is going to do this well, it's Avery.
• Strange Craft Beer releases its newest annual version of Dr. Strangelove Barleywine, one of the smoothest of its kind, at noon at the brewery.
Saturday
• Durango's sextet of breweries have combined to produce a double IPA to mark the first-ever celebration of Colorado Public Lands Day. This seems a good reason to stop by any of the six breweries and try it out.
• At noon, Strange ends not just its ACBW celebrations but its 7th-anniversary celebration with a 10-brewery Backyard BBQ celebration at the brewery. For $35 at the door, this could be the bargain of the week.
• Also at noon, Westfax Brewing of Lakewood taps its Cilantro Lime Ale. I don't know that cilantro is a viable ingredient to add to beer. But then, I said the same thing about rosemary, habaneros and a whole lot of other ingredients and been proven wrong on that.
• At 1 p.m., Upslope Brewing is having a music festival complete with new beers at its Flatiron Park Brewery. That sounds Boulder-tastic.
Beer events really can sneak up on you these days. Like American Craft Beer Week. Yes, the week that began Monday and runs through Sunday.Some of you may be up to date on this celebration and may already have begun scratching events off your check list. But for those of you who, hypothetically, may be recovering from covering the brutal final month of the Colorado Legislature, haven't written a blog since early April and are just now waking up to the idea that you need to get out and enjoy the flurry of activities this week, here's a small checklist of things to do.
Thursday
• There are lots of beer-food pairings going on this week. But Joyride Brewing's 7 p.m. tasting with MouCo Cheese not only puts good beer with a great cheese company; at $15 a head, it's also one of the most affordable cheese pairings you will find.
• Cigar City ends its four-day celebration of launching in Colorado with an appropriate party at Star Bar, which has been slinging the Florida beer for years during the Great American Beer Festival. It's worth a stop between 8 and 10 p.m.
Friday
• Avery Brewing releases Reel Peel IPA, a tangerine IPA, at its Boulder County brewery starting at 11 a.m. before canning it in six-packs. I've largely resisted fruit-flavored IPAs as a fad that should go away soon. But if anyone is going to do this well, it's Avery.
• Strange Craft Beer releases its newest annual version of Dr. Strangelove Barleywine, one of the smoothest of its kind, at noon at the brewery.
Saturday
• Durango's sextet of breweries have combined to produce a double IPA to mark the first-ever celebration of Colorado Public Lands Day. This seems a good reason to stop by any of the six breweries and try it out.
• At noon, Strange ends not just its ACBW celebrations but its 7th-anniversary celebration with a 10-brewery Backyard BBQ celebration at the brewery. For $35 at the door, this could be the bargain of the week.
• Also at noon, Westfax Brewing of Lakewood taps its Cilantro Lime Ale. I don't know that cilantro is a viable ingredient to add to beer. But then, I said the same thing about rosemary, habaneros and a whole lot of other ingredients and been proven wrong on that.
• At 1 p.m., Upslope Brewing is having a music festival complete with new beers at its Flatiron Park Brewery. That sounds Boulder-tastic.
Labels: American Craft Beer Week, Avery Brewing, Cigar City Brewing, Durango breweries, Joyride Brewing, Star Bar, Strange Craft Beer, Upslope Brewing, Westfax Brewing
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Still Craft After All These Cans?
It's the kind of place simple craft breweries don't put up. The burger-heavy restaurant - the same concept the brewery operates in Longmont and at Coors Field - is connected by a walkway and a courtyard to its Hotbox Roasters shop that serves coffee, beer and donuts. When asked why the beer maker started making donuts, Oskar Blues Fooderies executive Jason Rogers, who worked as a baker in college, said it just sounded like something that went well with coffee. That makes sense.
Last week, Oskar Blues opened a beer bar/restaurant/donut place in Denver. The expansion shouldn't come as a surprise, since the one-time Lyons brewpub has grown already into Longmont (four times), North Carolina, Texas - and soon into Colorado Springs.
But with the multi-state empire, not to mention the two other breweries Oskar Blues has purchased with capital from venture firm that is a part owner of the brewery, one can't help but look at the company that pioneered craft beer in cans and ask: Is Oskar Blues still craft, or has it gone corporate?
The new CHUBurger location at 3490 Larimer Street in the RiNo neighborhood actually presents some good points in pondering this question.
The restaurant opened about 18 blocks west of an 11,000-square-foot restaurant and music venue that the brewery will open in the renovated Market Center development downtown later this year. Two major investments in the same general city area isn't Starbucks-level saturation, but it's not exactly boot-strapping it either.
Then there are the questions that swirl around Fireman Capital Partners, the investment firm that purchased a major share of Oskar Blues in 2015 and then provided the capital for it to buy Perrin Brewing of Michigan and Cigar City Brewing of Florida, the latter of which had been scoped out also by by some major non-craft brewing interests. But before Fireman bought into Oskar Blues, it bought Utah Brewers Cooperative, restructured it and laid off a couple of long-time brewery operators, making some in the industry question if it was just AB-InBev in a craft-brewing disguise.
Then again, I spoke last year with Jarred Sper, co-founder of Perrin Brewing, when the company entered the Colorado market last year about the influence of Oskar Blues. He told me - not surprisingly - that its role with his brewery was the furthest thing he could imagine from an Anheuser-Busch-style takeover. But he laid out some pretty good arguments for why he felt that way.
Oskar Blues and its charismatic founder Dale Katechis changed zero about Perrin's small-brewing culture when it purchased the brewery. Instead, it used its resources to help Perrin scale up and begin distribution outside of Michigan, as Perrin had wanted. It offered its expertise and influence to get into sales channels but didn't change the recipe for beers like its tasty Grapefruit IPA.
"When people talk shit about Fireman Capital, you know what? It's giving us opportunity to do what we were going to do anyway," Sper said. "I really believe Dale has a vision of what he wants to do ... The culture still feels like 'Middle finger up, what the f--k do we want to do?"
And while CHUBurger may be starting to grow like a chain, there are some things that don't resemble any other chain out there.
There are 10 Oskar Blues beers on tap, as you would expect. But there are 20 other taps too - including those from the likes of Call to Arms, Hogshead, Ratio and Wibby, small and local breweries that benefit greatly from the inclusion on a beer list like that.
Rogers said Oskar Blues reached out to beer makers like them because they were in the position it was a decade or so ago - making great beer and looking for their opportunity to get noticed. The restaurant will do burger specials with their beers because they know it will bring in locals who are growing a dedicated following to them.
And while Oskar Blues restaurants may be multiplying like rabbits, it's not an indication of selling out so much as it is a sign of Dale's constantly burning entrepreneurial fire, looking to see what new project or new market he can grow into next, Rogers said. (These are, after all, the folks who became the first craft brewery last year to expand into all 50 states.) The fooderies side of the business has almost 300 employees now, which means more people on a payroll and more opportunities to generate money for charity like its Can'd Aid Foundation that's done things like send pallets of canned water to Flint, Michigan when it was in the depth of its water crisis.
"It hasn't lost that craft spirit. It hasn't," Rogers said emphatically when I asked whether the company had gone corporate. "Obviously, there are efficiencies we have to put on as we grow. But I think we really navigated that and stayed real to who we are."
The venture-fund ownership remains a worry even to those in the industry who are fans of Oskar Blues. But as of now, Fireman Capital has done nothing to change the feel of the brewery and its bold beers - or that of Perrin and Cigar City - and it should be given the benefit of the doubt until it makes a move that runs counter to that.
As far as the growing number of restaurants and breweries and music halls, what they show is that Oskar Blues is no longer the scrappy little craft brewery that it was when people thought it was nuts for putting Dale's Pale Ale in a vessel that was as corporate as the can. And, to be sure, the brewery needs to be cautious as it moves into more and more neighborhoods not only that it doesn't step on the toes of local breweries but that it doesn't step on the toes of the local restaurants and beer bars that have been promoting those breweries since before it came to town.
But a close look at what it's doing at CHUBurger and other locations, I feel, shows you that is hasn't sold out. It's taking full advantage of its increasing resources, maybe in a way that no craft brewery in America other than Stone Brewing has done before. But it's also churning out new beers and doing what it can to give taps at its places to breweries that can reach a wider audience through their association with Oskar Blues.
So, call Oskar Blues the behemoth of the craft-beer industry if you will. But don't call it corporate. There's still too much of the "FIDY" attitude to denigrate it that way. And we can only hope that further growth and success does not change that.
Labels: beer bars, Cigar City Brewing, Oskar Blues, Perrin Brewing, restaurants, Stone Brewing, Utah Brewers Cooperative
Monday, September 20, 2010
Best of GABF 2010Change was in the air this year at the Great American Beer Festival. Yes, the long-time best breweries brought their game (Russian River with a still trend-setting pucker-worthy Supplication, New Glarus with its consistently unique Raspberry Tart, Great Divide shaking things up with its oak-aged Rumble IPA). But this seemed to be the year when five other breweries really stepped up to grab the spotlight.
Call it the "line test." When you grabbed a one-ounce pour, where was it that you just wanted to turn around, head to the back of the line and wait, no matter how long, for another beer to see what else that brewer could do? Just within the confines of the Fearless Tasting Crew, these were those places: Cigar City Brewing, Six Rivers Brewing, Odell Brewing, Cascade Brewing and late-session find Weyerbacher Brewing Co.
And so, here is just one man's very abbreviated opinion of the best beers that could be found at the 29th Great American Beer Festival.
Best in Show: Based on its uniqueness as a cross between a sour and a saison alone, Cigar City's Guava Grove might have been the beer about which the most people left the festival buzzing. But what separated it from the sour genre and truly made it special was that the use of the guava for flavor, unlike sour cherries or raspberries, was not especially penetrating or intense. Instead, it just sat on the tongue, making this the most accessible and pleasing sour beer in a show where more and more made their way to the forefront.
Best hoppy beer: Judging by the fact that it, unlike most other types of hop, showed up in several beers' names, simcoe is the "it" hop right now. And nothing made better use of this edgy and intense floral flavor than Easton, Pa.-based Weyerbacher Brewing's Double Simcoe IPA. Introducing itself with a huge burst of flavor but leaving you with a more full-mouthed grassy rather than bitter backtaste, this beer, more so than any others of its genre, straddled the line between sweet and bite.
Best dark beer: Old-school stouts and porters seem to be on their way out. In fact the words "oatmeal porter" were about as rare this year as the term "light lager." But between chocolate-milk stouts and coffee-infused Russian imperial stouts, the taste that stood out the most was Six Rivers' Smoky Joe's Spicy Porter, which deftly weaved together mesquite, roasted malt and pepper spices into its own creation.
Best traditional sour: The three different barrel-aged creations that went into Odell's Friek looked at first like some strange blend of tomato and pineapple juice. But the raspberry-cherry overlap turned out to blend amazingly well and prove as refreshing as it was challenging. Kudos go as well to Cascade's Apricot Ale and its Kriek.
Best wheat/lager/lighter ale: At a festival that seemed to be all about barrels, coffee, smoke and limit-pushing new ingredients, it seemed that just about the only lighter beer turning heads was Dry Dock Brewing's Paragon Apricot Blonde. Accessibly fruit-tinged without being overpowering and without forgetting that the beer is more important than the additive, this calmed your taste buds and left you thinking "Mmm, session beer" more than anything else you tasted at the GABF.
Labels: Cigar City Brewing, Dry Dock Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Odell Brewing, Six Rivers Brewery, Weyerbacher Brewing
