The Beer Here: HighHolder's Opening Line-up

HighHolder Brewing Company will have its grand opening at O'Marro's Public House on Saturday, August 11, at 3 p.m. This will be the first time, since the brewery officially opened in March, that Oshkosh's lone nano-brewery will have multiple beers on tap. 

The Beer...
HighHolder has been stocking up and will release five beers for the grand opening: Borderlands, a dark, German-style altbier; EWECO, a New England style IPA; Raspberry Slide, a wheat ale conditioned on raspberries; Up N Down, a German-style Kölsch beer; and The Inky, an 8% ABV imperial milk stout. The Inky has been aged on vanilla and will start pouring as a special release at 6 p.m. Flights will be available.

The Backstory...
HighHolder Brewing is located at 221 Oregon Street, in a suite behind O'Marro's Public House. Launched by Mike Schlosser and Shawn O'Marro this is Oshkosh's first nano-brewery – loosely defined as a brewery that makes its beer in batch sizes of about three barrels or less. Those small batches have been met with enthusiasm. Each beer HighHolder has released has been finished off in less than a week. And that's left gaps where the brewery has had no beer available for sale. I asked Schlosser if those dry periods have been frustrating.

"It was at first," he said. "I wanted to always have our stuff available, but the reality is that it's just not possible at this point. We've been trying to tell people that when you see we've got it, come on in because it'll be gone next week."

Shawn O'Marro (left) and Mike Schlosser in the HighHolder Brewhouse

Nearly all of the brewery's production has been poured at O'Marro Public House. O'Marro says his customers have been understanding when they've come in to find they can't get a HighHolder. "Nobody really gives us too hard a time about it," he says. "And it's been kind of cool to see people getting excited when we do get a new beer out."

All of which should go to make the grand opening seem like a feast. And those periods of famine may be coming to end before too long. Just six months after its opening, HighHolder is planning an expansion. "We're looking to keep it a nano, but we're probably going to step up to a 3.5 barrel system," Schlosser says. "It's not a done deal, but that's where we're headed."

In the meantime, there are those five beers waiting in the pipeline for the grand opening. In addition to the HighHolder beer, there will be food, games, and live music by The MadPolecats and Swamp Water Boogie with special guest Max Jones. For more info, check in at the Facebook event page.