Last year a friend of mine from high school living in Denver asked me whether I was coming out to the Great American Beer Festival. Unfortunately at the time I had a project at work and just couldn't take the time. Now I have two midterms next week at school and shouldn't take the time but on the other hand I can drink the best of American beer one ounce at a time...slam dunkel.
The Ale High City
Fortunately we got our tickets online ahead of time because the convention center was sold out for people walking up. There are several "sessions" for the festival. The best for beer geeks being the "Members-only" (formerly Connoisseur's Tasting) where only members of the American Homebrew Association are able to buy tickets (rest assured you can buy your membership simultaneously) and you can be among the first to try award winning beers. Gold, Silver and Bronze are awarded for 75 categories of beer.
My friend Joe and I headed out around 11:45 by taxi driven by Borat the mere 1.5 miles to the convention center. Will call was a cinch and we waited in a line that stretched about half a mile with fellow beer enthusiasts. One had a rockies purple beehive wig, another, an oversized conehead style hop, and guy who made a cowboy hat out of a Keystone Light 12 pack box. We we can only hope was done for irony.
As you walk in the door they check your ID and hand you a 3 ounce sampler pilsner style glass. One of the more distinguished traditions of the convention is to applaud and groan when someone breaks their glass and no sooner did we walk in did we here the familiar shatter followed by the despondent cries for a souvenir that hadn't experienced the even the slightest lacing of the nectar of the gods.
With 1600 beers to try at one ounce per beer, that's 100 pints, 12.5 gallons or roughly 47.25 Oktoberfest/Hofbrauhaus style mugs full of wonderful beautiful beer. A lofty and admirable goal but for four hours a little impractical. I made a mental list of about 10 beers I wanted to try, everything else was gravy.
We started with one of two disappointing beers on the day. Floppin crappie. Yeah I know I what you are thinking. With so many excellent beers I'll just list of the standouts/interesting ones:
Belgian Dark - 21st Amendment Brewery
Rasberry Tart - New Glarus Brewery (only distributed in WI and probably for that reason, had the longest line)
Smoked Hefeweizen - Minneapolis Hall Brewery
Celis Grand Cru- Michigan Brewery
Alleviator and Cassis - Allentown Brew Works (the brewery went home empty handed...wow..)
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout - Brooklyn Brewery (poured by the head of the company Garett Oliver!)
Ruination - Stone Brewing (I should have tasted this one last, as I couldn't taste any other beer for at least 15 minutes the hoppiest beer I have ever had...ever)
Fort - Dogfish Head (these guys are always making some interesting brews)
Imperial Chocolate Stout - Ommegang
Farmhouse Saison - Ommegang
George's Fault - Noddinghead
Dreadnaught IPA - Three Floyds
Blackilicious Stout - Redfish Fish (I think it is a brewpub)
Doppelbock - Flying Dog (part of the opensource beer project)
After a fair amount of tasting we headed over to get some pizza and see the innovations in beer and beer accessories. For example, a bottle opener that fits on your cap, that has a magnetized opener so the cap doesn't fall, or how about a keg that can fit in a backpack with a spare tap for passer's by. In the free category was a neck clip that would hold your drinking glass giving you two hands free to do whatever you need to (such as write down all the beers one is trying).
Joe and I happened to find a couple of Bulls fans (which honestly looked kind of familiar to me) who informed me of their huge win over UCF 64-12. Wow...We gave them our camera to take a picture of Joe and me...then...
How did that happen?
Well apparently the neck holder was not tested for this scenario...
Joe ended up getting a plastic cup which was marked more clearly at 2 ounces than one so he got the benefit of the doubt on subsequent pours. Note to self, break taster...
I got to see a few allstars in the beer world like Garett Oliver head of Brooklyn Brewery, Greg Koch the head of Stone (nice guy... told me that FL was not in the distribution plans until at least next year), and Jim Koch the head of the Boston Beer Company (aka Samuel Adams).Before leaving we headed over to the Breathalyzer booth and Joe and I blew a 0.1 and a 0.06 respectively (earlier I had gotten to 0.8). Higher altitudes make you much more sensitive to alcohol, I don't care what experts say. Fortunately the layout of Denver is highly walkable so we headed over to the 16th street mall (which reminds me a lot of Munich's pedestrian mall) and over to Wynkoop for a free beer for GABF attendees and to watch the end of LSU Kentucky.
We took the lightrail and bus back to Joe's place and crashed for a few hours. The plan was to go to a Zombie Beer party (yeah I have no idea either) at Flying Dog Brewery but by the time we got out it would have been close on time so we just shot some pool and crashed again.The next morning the weather continued to not cooperate so we canceled our disc golf plans, went to a barbershop and then headed out to Casa Bonita, a local favorite among people who want TexMex in a festive atmosphere.
Inside there are cliff divers, blackbeard's cave (currently a haunted house) arcades for the kids and more. The place is actually massive, in addition to the hundreds of seats in the main lobby area, there are "tunnels" where you can scarf down your food.
Feeling pretty full of burritos and sopapillas we called it a night. 12 hours later I was on a plane back to Tampa. Awesome weekend! Thanks Joe!
--Joey
Edit: Bilingual beer puns await you in the comments if you are a polyglotten for punishment ;)
