In a big brewery trifecta, WNC will get another new brewery — and relatively fast, too. According to Colorado publication Longmont Times-Call, Oskar Blues Brewery of Longmont, Colo. has signed a lease on a brewery space and adjacent restaurant and music venue in downtown Brevard. If all goes according to plan, the brewery should be open for business by December.
UPDATE: The brewery’s production facility will be located in a warehouse/manufacturer on Railroad Avenue in Brevard. There’s no definitive locale for the restaurant/music venue, but Oskar Blues is looking at spots in downtown Brevard, according to John Felty, owner of Looking Glass Entertainment and Mountain Song Productions. Oskar Blues has long been a sponsor of Mountain Song Festival, a bluegrass music festival held annnually in Brevard in September.
From the newspaper article:
“In a statement released late Tuesday, founder Dale Katechis, a mountain-biking enthusiast, said he has kept a bike in Brevard, on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest, for years, and travels there frequently to go mountain biking and to attend the annual Mountain Song Music Festival.
‘This place rings true with the same eclectic mountain charm that inspired Oskar Blues to put Dale’s Pale Ale in a can back in the day in Lyons,’ Katechis said in a statement announcing his plans.
His company has signed a contract on a 30,000-square-foot brewery space adjacent to a 6,000-square-foot restaurant and music venue in downtown Brevard, which he said, has a ‘small town main street tone’ similar to Lyons.
The company has been looking at taking its Colorado operations ‘to the next level,’ Katechis said in the statement, but opening a smaller venue in a community he has an affinity for struck him as ‘a lot more fun,’ as well as allowing the company to save on shipping costs, as more than 35 percent of its beer is sold east of the Mississippi River.
The new venue should be up and running by December, the company said.”
Oskar Blues, started as a small restaurant/brewpub in 1997 in Lyons, Colo. near Boulder, and is well-known for being one of the first craft breweries to can its brew.
Brevard Brewing Co. opened in downtown Brevard just last week, with head brewer Kyle Williams focusing on lager beers.
This is getting crazy. In a good way.