LONGMONT — The old barn where the Oskar Blues “Canned Beer Apocalypse” was launched will soon give birth to another revolutionary idea.
The stills have been ordered and the federal licensing agreements are in process for Lyons Soul Distilling LLC, the latest venture for Oskar Blues Brewery. Plans are for the distillery to be up and running by this summer, according to spokesman Chad Melis.
“We’re going to can some spirits,” he said Friday at the company’s Longmont brewery.
Oskar Blues owner Dale Katechis said he has ordered a couple of different brands of stills and will experiment with making different things with them. “Play around with it — kind of like the way we do with special-batch beers,” he said.
The first two products planned for Lyons Soul Distilling will be an Organic Agave Nectar using locally produced Madhava honey, and a whiskey made from brewery mash that will be aged for two years in French white oak barrels.
“In the meantime, we’ll experiment with making those other spirits that don’t require an aging process,” Katechis said.
Though craft brew in a can is at the heart of the company — Oskar Blues was the first to do it and the method has been copied by scores of craft breweries since — spirits are not a completely foreign subject. In 2008 Oskar Blues signed a contract to provide the wash, or mash — the liquid left over after malted barley is boiled in water — for Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey. Stranahan’s has since started making its own mash, but over the years Oskar Blues has also aged some of its specialty beers in Stranahan’s barrels.
