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Rocky Mountain District Technical Meeting
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Title:Canned Beer Apocalypse: Oskar Blues Brewery’s Pioneering Micro-canning Effort and the Benefits of Canned Craft Beer Abstract:In November of 2002, Dale Katechis and his tiny Oskar Blues Brewery launched its “Canned Beer Apocalypse” and became the first US craft brewer to brew and can its own beer. The brewery began hand-canning its hoppy Dale’s Pale Ale on a table-top machine that sealed one can at a time. The move defied the brown-bottles-only mantra of the craft beer movement. Oskar Blues has since grown from a 700 barrels/year brewpub to a 12,409 barrel brewery (in 2007) and the leading force in the growing microcanning niche. Dale will lead a tour of the brewery’s new 30,000 barrel brewing & canning facility in Longmont, Colorado. He’ll talk about the joys of assertive-but-elegant beer, the many benefits of cans, the microcanning process, and how Oskar Blues acheived its growth and success. C.V. – Brief:Dale Katechis entered the restaurant business at the age of 8, working in his mother’s restaurant in Florence, Alabama. Years later he graduated from Auburn University with a degree in Finance, before heading west to Colorado in 1992 with his wife and high school sweetheart, Christi. Dale served as a manager of two Old Chicago locations in Colorado before opening Oskar Blues in 1997. He turned the restaurant into a brewpub in 1999. Since launching the brewery’s trailblazing microcanning effort, Katechis and his team of scrappy rule breakers have almost single handedly opened the canned craft beer segment. Today Oskar Blues is an industry pioneer and one of the fastest-growing craft brewers in Colorado and the US. When not working, Dale spends time with wife and four children, Pate, Ila, Hattie and Wells. He is an avid mountain biker, and has served as president of the Lyons Chamber of Commerce since 1999. Motto: "You can sleep when you die."
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