Dale Katechis, the founder of Oskar
Blues, is very hands on
so as Oskar Blues started to grow he
wanted something that was a little more
hands-on and he always enjoyed coffee so
he bought a little coffee roaster and
started roasting coffee on it, kind of
for brewery consumption and for him to drink at home
and found that people
really dug it and it was something that
he enjoyed doing a lot so he bought a
bigger roaster and started to grow the brand.
A light bulb went off in his head
and he was like oh, we could
do coffee so, we're doing coffee now! And
hot box rest just born and now we're
rockin' and rolling so it's a good time
here.
Oh the choice to use a Cask canning line was probably the easiest choice we've had to make here
In 2002 when Dale started putting craft beer in a can he went with Cask.
We wanted to have the reliability and the support system that Cask offered us. We knew that we could
pick up the phone and say we've been one
of your longest customers if we had a
problem, come help us and we've had that experience every time.
Well and I think we're the first coffee company that Cask has worked with which is exciting too
The relationships that I've
developed over the years in both South
and Central America working with coffee farmers,
helping a farmer see what it is
that we need so that their product is
worth more money helps that their
lifestyle, improves their quality of life
we end up with a higher quality product
that we pass on to you the consumer
We will buy all that coffee and work
closely with the candidate to do some philanthropic
activities at his farm so that was a big
part for me was that this was not just
about putting coffee in a can which is
really cool but making a big difference.
CAN'D AID is really awesome and one of the
things that really hits it home for
me is they do a lot of things with
children and bikes so kids that have
never had a bike before and to me it's
really cool because like the first sense
of freedom as a human
is getting on a bike and riding without
training wheels for the first time. That's really cool so when we give these
kids these bikes and just seeing their
faces light up it's pretty awesome.
So tell me the story behind the
name?
So we're all about you know the funny names here tongue-in-cheek jokes but to be quite
honest with you, it's a term for a Bolivian coffee roaster loosely translated
One of the benefits for us of using the Cask line is that it is a low dissolved oxygen level piece of
equipment so with coffee being something that oxidizes we want to minimize that at all costs.
Oxidation means staling and
because we're doing a complete nitrogen
saturation as well as a nitro dose,
we  have to be really careful that oxygen  isn't introduced into our system.
The Cask line has helped us to achieve and exceed our goals.
We know that cans are
better for products like coffee so we
went with that and we're really big into
the outdoors here, you know. We like to
ride our bikes, we like to go hiking,
climbing, swimming, whatever we can do to
get us outdoors and we don't really want
to throw a glass bottle in our backpack
and you know have that break while we're
out there on the trail or you know go to
the beach you can't take glass to the
beach so cans just made total sense and
they're infinitely recyclable unlike
glass. Crush them down recycle and
reuse them. It's all good.
Our goal is certainly to grow with Cask.
We will probably need to add a second
Cask line within the next eight months.
And knowing that Cask recognizes that
our growth has just been explosive in
this industry and they're willing to
help us get to that next level is huge
At the end of the day it's beer and
coffee, you know, it's fun stuff!
