It's Oberon Season!

By Karl Klockars in Food on Mar 31, 2009 6:00PM

Okay, so when we think "Bell's Oberon" we don't typically imagine snow on the ground and temps in the 30's. But damnit, when Larry Bell says it's Oberon season, it's Oberon season. We were at Sheffield's last night for the tapping of the first keg of the year, which means that spring must be somewhere nearby. We hope.

The other reason we've been eager for Oberon season is because this year marks the first full season since the Great Bell's Blackout of 2006. Last year we saw the re-entry of an Oberon-esque beer called the Kalamazoo Brewing Unfiltered American Wheat Ale, which got us all sorts of excited - but it was just a stopgap. Then, of course, we saw the return of Bell's proper in the middle of last summer, ending the need for your bootlegging runs to Kalamazoo.

In any event, Oberon is back in town, if a little early - the release usually coincides with the beginning of the baseball season. Why the early release? Well, with every thousand batches of beer that Bells brews, they release a special Batch X,000 beer - and they're up to batch 8999 right now. What's the Batch 9000 going to be? It's still not entirely clear, but beer enthusiasts are crazy excited about it, no matter what.

(Ed. Note: Bottom Lounge (1375 W. Lake St.) is also hosting an Oberon release party at 8 p.m. tomorrow night — Sudo.)