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As I detailed before leaving for Denver, going to the Great American Beer Festival should entail some planning. Especially when covering this thing as a member of the media, there are always small events, tap-takeovers, BA only stuff and media specific stuff that must be taken into account. A hard thing to cover in any sort of conventional way, yet it needed to be done righteously.
The intent here is to give you a taste of what a four-day weekend at GABF looks like when running like a crazed, dry-hopped sour fiend, through the crammed streets of Downtown, LoDo and the surrounding neighborhoods of Denver, during what is, by far, the nation’s largest beer festival.
Day 1, Pre-Game
You’d think that a four-day fiesta filled with fancy beers would drive someone toward the sane notion of moderation. In fact, a brewer in front of me at the airport on an escalator yelled at some friends running up the stairs saying “hey, it’s supposed to be a marathon, not a sprint!” To which I chimed in “You know that one’s gonna come back to bite ya later tonight.” He just nodded his head and whimpered “you’re probably right.” The excitement that builds leading to this festival is palpable, restraining oneself is a difficult chore – and really… who likes chores?
My first destination, around 3:30pm Thursday, was Deschutes Brewery’s VIP event that was celebrating their planned facility in Roanoke slated to begin construction in 2019. There were some taps that I didn’t really peruse, as the main course were 3 vintage bottles: Dissident, Not the Stoic and Black Butte XXVI (L to R above – all from 2014). They also featured some delights from local Roanoke brewer Chaos Mountain Brewing. I tried a taster of each, met a few folks and was quickly on my way.
Being in the media enables us to get on the floor a half-hour early, primarily for photography and to talk to industry folks – there’s little to no beer flowing before the doors open at 5:30 anyway. So as I was biding my time, I happened upon Sam Calagione, putting the finishing touches on the Dogfish Head display. It was definitely a highlight to finally meet him.
From there the rest of the 1st Session (5:30 to 10pm) kind of blurred together. I spent the first 2 hrs roaming around, running into a few friends, taking pictures, enjoying what I found to be the shortest lines of the weekend, checking out Uinta’s cool camping tent booth, enjoying the Meet the Brewer section and awaiting the arrival of my airbnb housemates for the weekend.
Once they showed, it was go-go-go… with the standouts being the bourbon barrel deliciousness from Dark Horse Brewing (Bourbon Barrel-Aged Plead the Fifth was a favorite), sharing the tasty glory of Great Notion with my Texas friends, the Imperial Sour Blonde with passion fruit and Hibiscus at Four-Sons Brewing from Huntington Beach, CA and my favorite of the weekend, Black Project Spontaneous & Wild Ales in Denver. Their dry-hopped sours Jumpseat & Ejector, plus their “American Gueuze” Oxcart were the best new beers I tasted all weekend – period.
We stayed until last pour, the first time I’ve ever stayed the entirety of a session, then cruised across the street to spend some time with our friends from Texas who were part of the Pints for Prostates fundraiser, headlined by the Beerliner, Blue Owl Brewing, The Collective Brewing Project, Braindead Brewing and Oak Highlands Brewery.
By the time we were done it was… IDK, around 12:30 and in the low 40’s with a chill wind in the air. We reluctantly stopped, got in an uber and once back, opened a can of Block 15 Story of the Ghost I brought to share.
Day 2 – Work
Realizing I was still alive around 7am Friday morning was a good thing for a split second, then the splitting headache distracted my brief epiphany. Thankfully I had no official plans until the BA Press Conference at 3pm, giving me ample time to punish my liver a bit more.
So I joined my sour crazy roommates for the Casey and Cascade Tap Takeover at Hops and Pie in Denver’s Berkeley Neighborhood. While we did have to wait 2.5 hours for a seat, we had a few tasters while we waited such as the wonderful Casey Family Preserves Attika Cherry and Cascade’s NW Manhattan. After six 4oz tasters of sour Casey goodness with a Pliny the Elder palate cleanser and a small amount of the gigantic 10 inch “personal” pizza we each ordered, I rolled home to prepare for the press conference.
I was blown away by the 500 credentialed media that were in attendance, roughly double the attendance in 2015. Whilst learning about some 2016 economic stats on the industry, brewers concerns and legislation in the works in Washington D.C. I sipped on some Fort Collins Brewing Oktoberfest, a solid Märzen to ease my soured belly. I was bummed to find that there were an abundance of spent fancy bottles strewn about the back of the room, the spoils of the early birds.
Immediately following the conference, the Media were ushered into the much lauded “Paired” event, previously called Farm to Table. 21 brewers matched with 21 chefs, each featuring two pairings. I love this idea and appreciate the Brewers Association pushing the high-end, wine-like fanciness of beer, though I’m not a big foodie nor do I generally pair 4 star food with beer. I tried four offerings:
- Fremont Brewing, Field to Ferment (Centennial Fresh Hop Pale) + Gnocchi, smoked salmon, cucumber, crème fraiche & trout roe.
- Ecliptic Brewing, Quasar Pale + sweetwater farms vegetable “rillette” lemon ricotta, spent grain cracker.
- Maui Brewing, Blood Orange Lorenzini DIPA + red hot ham hock terrine, two-faced blue cheese, crispy carrot cake, micro celery.
- The Bruery Terreux, Confession + olathe corn budino with savory brown butter cake, candied hazelnuts, puffed chili sorgum.
After four pairings, including one that didn’t quite treat me right, I decided it best to head back into the convention hall before it got too busy. I started with another excellent Bruery Terreux beer, this time Frambulous, an oak-aged sour with raspberries. Turned out I was also early enough to get a taste of Jester King’s Spontaneous Blend 1, a 3 year gueuze blend – something we missed the night before because it was gone early. It was a pleasure to try it and to meet their Brewery Production Manager Averie Swanson.
I next met with our friend Andy Kline at Alaskan who introduced me to my first taste of their 30th Anniversary Perseverance Ale, a mellow RIS. I also caught up with one of my favorite brewers in Portland, Hopworks Urban Brewery’s Christian Ettinger with whom I discussed their excellent new Long Root Ale they brewed for Patagonia Provisions. It’s brewed with a perennial root, called Kernza, in place of traditional wheat, the first beer of it’s kind.
Next I visited with the folks at PicoBrew to learn about both of their countertop brew systems. The larger professional version is ideal for brewers to easily test small batch brews with less hassle and the small consumer version is great for the homebrewer. I finished the session by returning to the beer I first had 2 years ago at my first GABF, New Holland’s collab with Carhartt called, The Woodsman – A phenomenal barrel-aged cascade hopped pale ale that weighs in at 4.4%. Easily one of the best session ales I’ve ever had.
I ended the second session early so I could hang out with my friends for dinner. We stopped by a local joint in the neighborhood where I paired Funkworks Cascade hopped saison with steak and potatoes – my kind of pairing. We finished this second night of tasting madness with a bottle I brought out from Corvallis, OR made by de Garde Brewing for the 5th Anniversary of Block 15’s neighbor restaurant Caves. Hard to go wrong with a golden wild ale aged in chardonnay barrels with Oregon peaches.
Yet the fear I felt knowing this would all start again at 8:00 the next morning was causing me to seriously wonder what kind of monster would consciously hire someone like me to responsibly cover a beer convention…
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion tomorrow: surviving the GABF Awards, Session 3, hanging with Tavour at First Draft, a Surly takeover at Freshcraft and a trip to Black Project.
