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Osage Casinos starting 2021 with a new brewery and new hotel tower

Photo caption: The second hotel tower for the Tulsa-based Osage Casinos is nearly finished on Dec. 11, 2020. CODY HAMMER/Osage News

Osage Casinos will begin 2021 with a newly branded in-house brewery and a new hotel tower.

“We are going to bring the brewery in house and create our own brand,” said Osage Casinos CEO Byron Bighorse. “However, we are doing a cost/benefit analysis to ensure this is the direction we want to head. I believe we can manage this internally, but we will need the expertise of a brewmaster and their recipes.” 

Bighorse told the Tulsa World in November that many guests of the Tulsa-based hotel and casino did not connect with the brewery brand. They made a decision earlier this year to sever the relationship with the Allen, Texas-based brewer Nine Band Brewing Company.

“I am currently speaking to several members of the Oklahoma brewing community about the future,” he said.

Currently, Osage Casinos’ Tulsa location is the only casino in the state with an in-house brewery. Bighorse said they will be choosing a new name, brand and menu that will be announced soon.

The brewery opened in 2018 and featured a bar and a 20-barrel brewhouse capable of brewing four types of beer. At the time, Bighorse said the brewery was a way to attract a younger demographic to the casino.

Recently, the owner of Nine Band Brewing Company, Keith Ashley, has been in national news after he was arrested in Texas on state homicide and federal charges. Bighorse told the Tulsa World that they were disturbed by Ashley’s arrest and have accelerated the final stages of separation from the company.

Also planned for 2021 is the opening of the new 141-room hotel tower. The new tower is the exact replica of the first hotel tower built in 2017. Bighorse said 66 hotel rooms will be available to customers by Dec. 28, 2020. The rest of the rooms in the new tower will be ready by the first calendar quarter of 2021, he said.

There will be no ribbon-cutting or celebration for the second hotel tower opening due to COVID-19 concerns.

 

 


By

Shannon Shaw Duty


Original Publish Date: 2020-12-11 00:00:00

Author

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Shannon Shaw Duty
Shannon Shaw Dutyhttps://osagenews.org

Title: Editor
Email: sshaw20@gmail.com
Twitter: @dutyshaw
Topic Expertise: Columnist, Culture, Community
Languages spoken: English, Osage (intermediate), Spanish (beginner)

Shannon Shaw Duty, Osage from the Grayhorse District, is the editor of the award-winning Osage News, the official independent media of the Osage Nation. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a master’s degree in Legal Studies with an emphasis in Indigenous Peoples Law. She currently sits on the Freedom of Information Committee for the Society of Professional Journalists. She has served as a board member for LION Publishers, as Vice President for the Pawhuska Public Schools Board of Education, on the Board of Directors for the Native American Journalists Association (now Indigenous Journalists Association) and served as a board member and Chairwoman for the Pawhuska Johnson O’Malley Parent Committee. She is a Chips Quinn Scholar, a former instructor for the Freedom Forum’s Native American Journalism Career Conference and the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. She is a former reporter for The Santa Fe New Mexican. She is a 2012 recipient of the Native American 40 Under 40 from the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. In 2014 she helped lead the Osage News to receive NAJA's Elias Boudinot Free Press Award. The Osage News won Best Newspaper from the SPJ-Oklahoma Chapter in their division 2018-2022. Her award-winning work has been published in Indian Country Today, The Washington Post, the Center for Public Integrity, NPR, the Associated Press, Tulsa World and others. She currently resides in Pawhuska, Okla., with her husband and together they share six children, two dogs and two cats.

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