LONGMONT — Oskar Blues is headed for the hills.

Fresh off celebrating the 15th anniversary of Oskar Blues Grill & Brew last weekend in Lyons, the Longmont-based brewer announced its first venture outside the Centennial State, a restaurant/music venue and brewery in Brevard, N.C.

In a statement released late Tuesday, founder Dale Katechis, a mountain biking enthusiast, said he has kept a bike in Brevard, on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest, for years, and travels there frequently to go mountain biking and to attend the annual Mountain Song Music Festival.

“This place rings true with the same eclectic mountain charm that inspired Oskar Blues to put Dale’s Pale Ale in a can back in the day in Lyons,” Katechis said in a statement announcing his plans.

His company has signed a contract on a 30,000-square-foot brewery space adjacent to a 6,000-square-foot restaurant and music venue in downtown Brevard, which he said, has a “small town main street tone” similar to Lyons.

The company has been looking at taking its Colorado operations “to the next level,” Katechis said in the statement, but opening a smaller venue in a community he has an affinity for struck him as “a lot more fun,” as well as allowing the company to save on shipping costs, as more than 35 percent of its beer is sold east of the Mississippi River.

The new venue should be up and running by December, the company said.

Oskar Blues made other news Tuesday when it announced that it and Indiana-based Sun King Brewery are collaborating on a new limited-release beer they are calling CHAKA, a Belgian-style ale that will be packaged in 16-ounce, resealable aluminum bottles made by Ball Corp.

The two breweries worked closely with Ball and Cask Brewing Systems on the design of the Alumi-Tek bottle, which will be used for limited-release beers and for Oskar Blues’ new B. Stiff & Sons Old Fashioned Root Beer.

The connection between Oskar Blues and Sun King dates back 15 years, when Dave Chichura, now Oskar Blues’ head brewer, started his professional brewing career in Indianapolis and became friends with the two men who founded Sun King. They had been talking for years about working together on creating a beer and are excited to do it while introducing new packaging available to craft brewers, according to a joint statement by the two breweries.

Tony Kindelspire can be reached at 303-684-5291 or at tkindelspire@times-call.com.