Its been a couple years since Lyons Colorado’s Oskar Blues’ distinctive cans have been seen on the shelves of craft beer sellers here in the Treasure Valley.
Back in the Summer of 2010, citing production and capacity limits, the decision was made to pull out of the Idaho market after 4 or 5 years, much to the dismay and depression of craft beer lovers in the area. Apparently they felt they couldn’t adequately supply their larger markets while being stretched all the way to Idaho. What made it seem even worse was that OB was currently leading a really cool movement of canning good beer. I recently wrote about that HERE.
Now, they are coming back. Evidently production and capacity are no longer such a limit (aprox 120,000 barrels last year) they they can (re)expand to our market. Their recently opened 2nd brewery in North Carolina was undoubtedly behind this. That’s good for us. Regulars like Dale’s Pale Ale, Mama’s LIttle Yellow Pils, Old Chub, and Deviant Dale’s IPA has already started showing up around here. Other states being added to their turf are Minnesota, Delaware, Kansas and Nevada
As a gauge of how important this is, there were no less than 3 separate occasions/celebrations in town this past week. Local bottle-shops and gastro-pubs hosting events were Brewforia’s “Welcan Back” party, as well as “Welcome Back Oskar Blues”, a three day launching event at Whole Foods, and yet another at BierThirty
It was nearly to the point of people lining the streets waiving hops and barley sheaves shouting ‘Hail, Hail the return of the King”. Well maybe not that far….but it’s big. It’s great to see another quality brewer represented (again) here in the Boise area.
