Oshkosh Beer: Linking Up The Local Beer Scene

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Linking Up The Local Beer Scene

Let’s cut right to it: if you’re an Oshkosher with beer on the brain, here’s a cluster of local links you ought to be aware of.

We’ll start off with tap lists. I wish all of our good-beer joints in town were doing this, but so for only O’Marro’s & Dublin’s go to the trouble of posting their beer lists online. The O’Marro’s list also includes a convenient feature that allows you sort the beers five different ways. The Dublin’s list goes deeper on specifics, giving a brief description and the ABV of what they’re serving.

Becket’s is doing something along these lines with their Becket’s Beer Blog on Facebook. There, they post pictures of their tap handles as the new beers go on.

Also on Facebook, O'Marro's Public House Page regularly posts a “Beer DeJour” on their page where they feature something special from their list.

Let’s go back to Dublin’s for a moment. On their Youtube Page, they’ve been putting up short, tasting-notes about featured beers. New videos go up about once a week.

Even Festival Foods in Oshkosh has gotten into the act. Greatbrewers.com gives a decent listing of what’s available – craft wise – at the Oshkosh store. It’s limited by the distributor, but it gives you a good idea of what you’ll find on the shelf in their craft-beer section.

If you're shopping for packaged beer, check out Saveonbrew.com. Punch in your zip code and how far you’re willing to travel and it’ll spit back a list of beers that are on sale within your area.

If you’re not already sick of reading my shit, the Oshkosh Beer Garden, my monthly column for the Oshkosh SCENE, can be found at the Food & Dining section of their web page.

Then there’s the homebrewers. Here’s the woefully out of date Society of Oshkosh Brewers web page. That’s all right, this thing is being overhauled as I type. Give it another look in a few weeks.

Nutrition Discount Center’s plan to expand their homebrew offerings has yet to pan out. I talked to Jon at NDC yesterday and he says he’s got the stuff, but finding the time to get it inventoried and on the shelf has been a problem. He tells me he has a ton of new hops, yeast and specialty grains that will soon be ready for. In the meantime, NDC has some incredible deals on 50# bags of Briess Malt. As the new stock becomes available, this next link ought to become increasingly valuable. NDC’s Brew Nation Daily Deal is a printable coupon for homebrewing and wine making supplies. It changes daily and it’s worth a click now and then if you’re looking for a deal on brewing supplies.

One last batch: A number of local homebrewers have started up Facebook pages for their home breweries. These will give you an idea of what some of these folks are up to. Here are a few of them: