Video by Gabe Pocrass, CTV11.
“One of These Days” was a very interesting brew. It is a 7 percent ABV winter warmer that was brewed by Oskar Blues Brewery.
Oskar Blues, as some of you know is from Longmont, Colorado, and they are best known for their beer “Dale’s Pale Ale.” Before drinking this beer, however, I first wanted to learn the history of it, and being that I was at The Mayor of Old Town during this review, my history lesson was made pretty easy. This beer was made in collaboration (or collaBREWation) with the Mayor of Old Town, as well as five other Colorado companies. One of These Days was grown, malted, roasted, brewed and tapped all within the state. That is a pretty rare occurrence because most of the time, the barley in a beer is either nationally or internationally imported. Or, the barley is malted or roasted elsewhere.
One of These Days definitely tasted like a winter seasonal beer. It had a gingerbread taste that I automatically associated with the winter season. When I think of gingerbread, I think of cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla; this beer had all of those flavors.
While they did add these spices into the beer, they also made sure not to overwhelm it. Oskar Blues Brewery truly wanted to spotlight the malts in the beer because it was specifically grown and catered for that reason. The majority of the time it took to create this beer was in the growing and malting process. Why would you waste all that effort by adding too many spices? You don’t! So, while spices were added, they were not overwhelming.
The two characteristics that stood out to me with this beer were the foam and the drinkability.
First, the foam was very present in this beer. Not in the sense that there was an overabundance of foam, just that it had a unique presence and relationship with the beer. The foam stuck to the glass throughout the pint and by the time it was finished, there was a foam web throughout the sides.
Secondly, the next unique characteristic of this beer was how fast I drank it. I drank it so fast that I did not even realize when it was gone! It was actually pretty nice, though. I have a tendency to nurse my beers, but with One of These Days, nursing it was not an issue. For these two reasons, I rate One of These Days from Oskar Blues Brewery an 8 out of ten.
Collegian Beer Reviewer Gabe Pocrass can be reached online at blogs@collegian.com.