Hey, beer snobs. Think canned beer is junk? Think again. I recently tried a shiny red, blue and silver can of Dale's Pale Ale, and I thought it was über tasty — with surprising hop aroma and flavor, no less.

I was skeptical at first. But several beer lovers I respect told me how amazed they were by the quality of the canned beers produced by Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colo. And you have to give it to these guys — it takes a lot of brass to market a craft-brewed product packaged in aluminum.

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Though it's perched in the Colorado high country near Rocky Mountain National Park, Oskar Blues Grill & Brew (which opened in 1997 and became a brewpub in 1999) has a strong Southern connection. Founder Dale Katechis (the Dale in Dale's Pale Ale) is an Alabama native. And Oskar Blues features a Southern-inspired menu and live blues that reflect Katechis' roots, as well as an atmosphere he calls "Dixie-meets-the-Rockies hospitality."

Oskar Blues sales director Wayne Anderson is from LaGrange. And even though it was only last month that his company acquired the $45,000 machine to turn out canned beer on a large enough scale to "export" to other states, Georgia was one the first to receive it. Anderson says that happened because, "I need a reason to get home more often and eat my Mama's cooking."

But why cans in the first place?

Exuberant Oskar Blues publicist Marty Jones (he calls himself the company's lead singer) explains it this way: "We're all outdoorsy guys. And we wanted to be able to take great beer on our outdoor adventures, since quality time with Ma Nature calls for lofty beer. But bottles are too heavy, break and are a bummer to pack in and out."

After experimenting with hand-canning its beers, Jones says the brewers at Oskar Blues discovered that cans have "other, perhaps more juicy merits." They sent some samples to the famed Seibels Institute of Brewing in Chicago for analysis and found that the cans had one-third of the dissolved oxygen compared with their bottled beers. And with less risk of oxidation, beer naturally stays fresher longer.

"Canned beers never get light-struck and skunky either," Jones says. "We also discovered that it's a myth that modern-day aluminum cans hurt the flavor of beer. They don't. They protect it."

But beyond the positives of easy portability and flavor and aroma stability, the Oskar Blues team admits it was also its irreverent attitude that drove it to spread the gospel of what Katechis refers to as "the canned beer apocalypse."

"The thought of putting our big, hoppy pale ale into a can made us laugh for weeks," Jones says. "It's a move that's completely against the grain of craft brewing. But craft brewing is supposed to be about bucking the mainstream and following your heart. And sometimes your funny bone. Plus, we love the blue-collar, working-class feel of a cool can of beer."

In addition to Dale's Pale Ale, Oskar Blues' Old Chub Scottish Style Ale is also available here. The company claims it's "the maltiest American beer ever squeezed into a can." It's brewed with caramel, chocolate and smoked malts and has a hefty 8 percent alcohol by volume. Amazingly, canned or not, Old Chub is the fourth-highest rated Scottish-style ale at the beer geek voting site ratebeer.com.

• Dale's Pale Ale and Old Chub Scottish Style Ale, $6.79/six-pack at Green's.