Oskar Blues is a down-home tavern with ample selection of American craft beers, serving Cajun-American-style menu. They are quite popular hang-out spot for locals and travelers alike, with enough offering of big beer menu to ensure you will find your old and/or new favorite brew. This place is hard to miss, especially from the highway. You see this huge beer can sticking up into the sky with “Oskar Blues” on it, in true American colors, Red, White, and Blue. It is attached to a building that looks like a big barn. And with that, you get a huge space in the inside. They have plenty of light from big windows, and lots of light fixtures. Throughout the restaurant, they had interesting art that reminds you of blues, music, beer, and oldies.
As soon as you walk into this big space, you are greeted with a smile, and even though they have plenty of seating (and parking outside), it gets full very quickly! But then, they also have a nice, long bar counter where you can wait for your table while trying out some of their awesome beers. Did I mention they also brew their own beers? Awesome! Another really cool thing was the decoration. They had hundreds of beer tap handle, hanging upside down, on the ceiling above the bar counter. It was interesting to see the design of each tap handles.
I heard they have more than 40 tap, and I did see whole bunch of tap handles at the bar (not the ceiling). I ordered one of their original brews while waiting for a table to open up: G’Knight. It is a hefty hopped imperial red ale with a nose full of aroma, a sticky mouthfeel, a malty middle and rich hop flavor. It certainly was tasty, without it being heavy. I like more of a light beer, mainly imperial ale, so this one was a good fit for me. The bartender was very nice and knowledgeable, and since it was my first visit here, he got me a few samples of their brews before I made a decision. The sampling is always the way to go when you don’t know what the beer taste like.
Once we moved to our table, we got some appetizers to share. Crab Cake & Fried Green Tomatoes, Deep Southern Fried Homemade Pickles, and “Who Dat?!? jalapeños.” The first one, Crab Cake and Fried Green Tomatoes ($9.99) supposed to come with rémoulade, but later on, we realized we didn’t get crab cake at all…only the fried green tomatoes!!! About the time we realized, we were so full, we didn’t even bother. The tomatoes were good, not the best I’ve ever had, but it was good. Deep Southern Fried Homemade Pickles ($6.99) was crunchy and salty, and again, not the best I’ve ever had, but it was ok. Now, the one with interesting name “Who Dat?!? jalapeños” ($8.99) was quite interesting. They were crawdad, andouille sausage and cream cheese stuffed jalapeños wrapped in bacon. I was a bit afraid to try it at first, I thought it would be super spicy. But, it was actually really good, I think the cream cheese inside the jalapeños helped calm down its spiciness a bit, making it really good appetizer.
For the main, we got Jambalaya, Smoked Brisket, and Pig Pickin’ BBQ Pork. The Jambalaya had few different offerings and I got the one called “Tom Waits ‘I wish I was in New Orleans’ “($17.99) which comes with chicken, shrimp, adouille, scallops and crawfish. And oh my goodness it was huge. It came with large pieces of shrimp, sausages, and what seemed like a chicken breast on top. I have been to New Orleans and I had Jamabalaya there, and it didn’t look quite like this. It was tasty, had good kick to it, without being too spicy. Needless to say, I couldn’t finish, and had to take maybe half of it with me. The Smoked Brisket ($15.99) came with choice of 2 sides, and we chose real dirty rice and ham hock collard greens. The brisket was soft, juicy, and tasty. The sauce added extra full flavor to the brisket which already had nice, smokey flavor. The collard greens were surprisingly delicious! The Pig Pickin’ BBQ Pork ($11.99) also came with choice of 2 sides, and we got Crab & Corn Fritters and Salad (salad not shown). The pulled pork was also juicy, soft, tasty, and again the sauce was really nice. Speaking of sauce, they have several BBQ sauce at each table, and you can add all kinds of sauce on your food to your liking. They have a couple of them that is really spicy! The fritters were moist, tasty, and filling.
They have live music here also, and with open space with out much of any wall at all, it can get pretty loud. So it might not be a good place for business lunch/dinner, but a great spot for people to get together and enjoy a nice, ice cold beer and some cajun style food.
Oskar Blues – 1555 S Hover Rd, Longmont, CO 80501