Photos from an Oskar Blues Adventure
Oskar Blues Brewery and our local bar, Brewer's Republic, put together a field trip to visit a series of Oskar Blues venues, including the OB Hops and Heifers farm, the Oskar Blues production brewery, and OB Liquids and Solids. The bus came by early in the morning and picked up about 30 dedicated drinkers for what would prove to be not only an educational day, but one of the most memorable beer adventures we've had. 
The first stop was at the Oskar Blues Hops and Hefers Farm, a 50 acre farm right outside Longmont. The farm is part of a sustainable initiative to become more self-sufficient, local, and to use the brewery's own waste for it's own benefit. The farm provides the brewery's restaurant in Longmont with 100% of their beef. They also send the beef to restaurants for special events and they recently began raising a number of Berkshire pigs as well. The brewery takes it's own spent grain to the farm to feed the cattle and there are two acres that hold 3,500 hop plants grown to use in specialty beers. We cracked open a few beers, did some paddle boat in the pond, drove around on a crazy off-road vehicle, and played a little basketball on an eight foot hoop.
Our next stop was the Tasty Weasel tap room at the Oskar Blues production facility. We all grabbed a beer, I grabbed a pint of whatever was on cask, we played a little Skee Ball, and then enjoyed a tour of the brewery. This visit was very different than my last visit to the brewery. There were quite a few additional fermenters and they had replaced their old canning line with one that took up a huge amount of space but that increases the efficiency and fills up to 300 sixteen ounce cans a minute.
At some point we had all enjoyed quite a number of beers and we began riding bicycles around in the brewery. We stopped in the large walk-in cooler and spotted a keg of Chardonnay Barrel Aged Mama's Pils. We didn't get to sample it, but I'm hoping the OB crew will send some down soon, I've heard that it's absolutely delicious. The owners of Brewer's Republic all stopped for a photo opp (Dave and Bryan in the back with Jason in the front).
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| That's all of us! |
On the way out we were all getting a little hungry, but we still each finished off another beer. We passed around some apple-whiskey barrel aged G'Knight. The whiskey and apple notes came through very nicely and were an extraordinary compliment to the piney and citrusy hop notes that this beer is famous for. Alas, we had to say our goodbyes to the brewery, to the staff, and to the fake people with beer cans wrapped around their neck. We hopped back in the bus and headed just down the street to Oskar Blues Home Made Liquids and Solids.
Home Made Liquids and Solids is the restaurant portion of OB, featuring over forty beers, and they carry the OB farm raised beef we mentioned above. It's also home to a good sized back yard and horse shoe pit. They carry the regular OB beer lineup, and a few specialties that were produced on the smaller, original brewery in Lyons. They also carry a large amount of beer from breweries around the state and country, including a beer from our very own Black Fox Brewing. The food really hit the spot, was fresh, and really filling. Unfortunately we had to head home, so we grabbed a couple more beers, piled into the bus and sang songs until we got back to Colorado Springs.
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| Total bad-asses |
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