Oconee Brewing Company providing good brews, creative outlet for artists

Published 3:00 pm Monday, April 13, 2020

While COVID-19 has changed normalcy for a little while, area businesses are doing their best to keep their doors open and provide services for their customers. Oconee Brewing Company in Greensboro is not only providing good brews to help combat shelter-in-place blues, but also providing artists a creative outlet. 

OBC is launching a new Mexican Lager in May and is looking for both a name and a can design. The Union-Recorder reached out to the brewery and chatted with Leslie Tillery, media director at OBC about the recent curb-side service and the new creative call. 

The Union-Recorder: What is the brewery doing during COVID-19?

Leslie Tillery: We’ve taken the route of most Georgia breweries of putting our beer online for pre-orders.  We have a brewery “drive thru” on Fridays, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., and on Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.  We’ve had a pretty good response for the past two weeks of that program.

We’re also still brewing, canning, kegging and distributing to our current list of accounts. Through our partnership with 92.9fm’s The Game, we brew Hey Man blonde ale for the Dukes & Bell show. This is one of our best selling beers, so we’re making sure that fans can still find six packs in stores.  

Also, we’re using this time to be creative.  Our master brewer, Taylor, has created a hard seltzer in the flavors of peach, lime, and blackberry.  

Overall, we’re staying positive and thinking of adapting to the “new challenges” as steps in the right direction for our industry.  

U-R: Any big plans for the future when things can open that you can tell me about? 

LT: We’ll have our three year anniversary party (which was scheduled for May 9) as soon as we safely can welcome people back to the brewery. We also want to throw a big belated birthday bash for everyone who turned another year older while in quarantine.  And we’ll begin hosting concerts in our event center again.

U-R: Tell me about the beer can design contest. Why is it important for y’all to have local artists’ work? 

LT: We believe that this “down time” is also an opportunity to tap into being creative, which is a process that we always want to champion. We have a history of supporting artists, so a can design contest is a natural fit for our business.

U-R:  When will the Mexican lager be released? Why a Mexican lager in the first place? 

LT: The Mexican lager has been an ongoing suggestion made by our distribution company based on there not being many craft options of that style in the market.  Our’s should be ready in mid-May.

U-R: Anything else you want folks to know about OBC during this time? 

LT: We could not be more thankful for the support that is being given to our small business by customers.  To honor that sentiment, we will continue to work hard and keep the beer (and, now, hard seltzer) flowing!  And we can’t wait to see everyone soon!

Oconee Brewing Company is located at 202 N. West St., Greensboro, Ga. For more information about the can design contest, visit Oconee Brewing Company on Facebook.