As far as drinking buddies go, they don’t come much better than Tobias. He’s always at the bar at SKEYE Brewing in Longmont. As I get deeper into the flight of seven house beers and grow untidy, he’s spilling his drink all over the floor, too. And he doesn’t say a lot but he listens. Even when people at the bar are trying to think up famous people named Tobias and stopping at Wolff and Fünke, he lets it all be. Besides, his friends call him T-bone anyway, and when you do, he has these cute little brown ears that perk up, and then he starts licking your pant legs.
T-bone is the expressive brown and white French bulldog of Steve Allen, one of the owners of SKEYE. Dogs are part of the experience at this microbrewery, which was named after combining the names of Kami and Chris Malanowski’s (the other two owners of the brewery) dogs, Sierra, Kita and Yakone. Their logo is a rendering of a stoic husky wrapped in a veil of hops as if she’s ready to yoke up some beer barrels and deliver them through a driving snow to your cabin.
It was a brewing day when I stopped by at dusk on a recent Saturday. As T-bone and I sang “Piano Man” silently to each other with our eyes, the Malanowskis bounced between the tap room and the partitioned, modest-sized brewing chamber. They wore heavy-duty boots as it looked like a laborious, sloppy process that day, but occasionally they came out to say hello and pour themselves a pint of some of their previous brews from the wall of taps.
On the other walls hung a thoroughly deep collection of local art — there was photography, digital, oil, watercolor and other media of still art, juxtaposed on an adjacent wall with tapestries and woven art, spotlighted by overhead lights like it was a gallery. And still in another corner was an indoor taco stand in operation. Though I didn’t stick around for it, there’s also live music three nights a week at SKEYE. While it may seem like all these worlds would collide and contrast, instead, the space takes on, more than anything, the vibe T-bone exudes: that is, just roll with it.
Allen tells me all three owners still work full-time at other jobs, which makes the cultivation of such a space and atmosphere even more impressive. He says their space is prime, at the corner of Hover Street and Nelson Road, and business has been slowly picking up since their opening in June.
At the core of any success they have is their beer, which happens to be pretty good on the whole, with a few standouts, none more so than the Tobias Irish red ale, named after you know who. It’s malty and medium-bodied, with a little citrus for accent. That red ale also comes spiced — as does their porter, named after Yakita the dog. Neither are too sweet, and taste a lot like the spices in a traditional mulled wine with cinnamon and cloves commanding the most of the palate. SKEYE also currently has two easy-drinking summer beers.
SKEYE is Longmont’s eighth brewery, and Allen says they’re excited by the amount of regulars they’ve amassed in such a short time. You can join that cadre, too, if drinking spiced or flavorful beer in a casual art gallery with some goofy dogs sounds like fun to you.
