Great American Beer Festival

It was another awesome year at the Great American Beer Festival. The much anticipated beer festival always seems long with a beer-packed week of fun events around Denver and then three days of the actual festival, yet it is gone before you know it! This year’s festival grew in space, beer, and new additions.

Take me to the beer list – I hate reading!

Great American Beer Festival got more space

Already wonderfully huge, the Great American Beer Festival expanded once again. This year they added around 100k square footage. Helping to fill that space was over 4000 beers from 800 plus breweries. That’s a lot of beer in one place!

Great American Beer Festival added a beer garden

The Jameson Caskmates Barrel-Aged Beer Garden was a new addition this year. It was a whole area, that yes looked like a garden, with fake grass lining the walls and plenty of barrel-aged beers to taste. This was a very cool addition.

Great American Beer Festival reorganized

This year the festival reconfigured to have breweries in alphabetical order instead of organized by regions. This was exciting news to me but I can’t say I didn’t still get lost in the rows and rows of beer booths. It took about three sessions to really start to get the lay of the land!

Great American Beer Festival added a Collaboration Competition

New this year, breweries could submit collaborative beer entries to be judged by the panelists in a best of show format. With all the new additions this year, I failed to make it by this booth but I am excited at the new competition. I did however try many of the tasty beers at the Pro-Am (brewery pairs with a homebrewer) booth. Listed below were my three favorites. These were all excellent beers that I wish I could taste more!

• Parts Unknown Sweet Cream Stout brewed with pandan and coconut Riip Beer Company and Thien Le
• Nagorner’s Pride Classic Saison with Big Stump Brewing and Evan Nagorner
• Currant Events American Sour Ale aged with Black Currant Puree with Raleigh Brewing Company and Ricky Phillips

Beer! Beer! Beer!

Buffalo Wild Wings also had a huge space where you could sit back and relax with some wings, beer and football. The expansion of the beer festival is awesome, but the beer is always the big focus for me 🙂 At the Great American Beer Festival there is always a mix of visiting your favorite breweries and finding some new favorites. Many breweries, boasting delicious beers, were new to me: Kane Brewing, Sunriver Brewing, Maplewood Brewing, and Referendum Bier Blendery, to name a few.

Showcasing many of my favorite hops, Simcoe, Amarillo and Mosaic, the Resin Nation Double IPA by The Sunriver Brewing Company, was bound to be a favorite. This hoppy Double IPA would easily be a go-to for me. Big Pulpy by Maplewood was another IPA that was new to me and tasty. Big Pulpy was more in line with the juicy New England style IPAs.

Referendum Bier Blendery specializes in spontaneously fermented beers. Their beers were poured from a ceramic pitcher and a bottle in a basket, traditional of the lambic style. The Name of the Rose was tasty – it is a spontaneously fermented pale wheat ale refermented with NJ raspberries & NY sour cherries conditioned on Tahitian vanilla beans.

Yummy and easy to imbibe, Sunday Brunch Porter by Kane Brewing had notes of cinnamon, maple, lactose and coffee, fully supporting it’s Sunday Brunch title. Typically I fancy stouts more than porters; however, Pudding Goggles from Forager, captured my taste buds as well. Pudding Goggles is an Imperial Porter with notes of cinnamon, coconut, and chocolate. It’s another beer that I would crave in the cool fall evenings that turn to snowy winter nights.

Favorite Great American Beer Festival Beers

Take me Back to the Top

The list is compiled of some that were already favorites but I tried to include a lot of new ones that were my first time encountering. Cheers!

THE HOPPY

• Resin Nation Double IPA by Sunriver (Sunriver, OR)
• Shooter McGavin Imperial IPA by Barrel Theory (Saint Paul, MN)
• Big Pulpy by Maplewood (Chicago, IL)
• Happy Hops APA by Russian River (Santa Rosa, CA)
• Hootie Pale Ale by Sixpoint Brewing (NYC, NY)
• Virtuoso Double IPA by Lord Hobo (Woburn, MA)
• Red Evelyn Imperial IPA by Black Shirt (Denver, CO)
• Psychedelic Cat Grass American IPA by Shorts Brewing (Bellaire, MI)
• Olwyn IPA by Horse and Dragon (Fort Collins, CO)
• Space Ways NE IPA by Modern Times (San Diego, CA)
• El Camino Haze IPA by Funky Buddha (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

THE DARK AND BOLD

• Fundamental Observation by Bottle Logic (Anaheim, CA)
• Black Note by Bell’s Brewery (Kalamazoo, MI)
• Java Ten Fidy by Oskar Blues (Longmont, CO)
• Single Barrel Peanut Butter Cup Medianoche by Weldwerks Brewing Co (Greeley, CO)
• Breakfast Stout by Bosque Brewing (Albuquerque, MN)
• Pudding Goggles by Forager (Rochester, MN)
• Sunday Brunch by Kane Brewing (Ocean Township, NJ)

THE BEST OF THE REST

• I’m Your Huckleberry Sour by J Wakefield (Miami, FL)
• BA 120 Minute IPA by Dogfish Head (Milton, DE)
• Intinction Pilsner aged in Sauv Blanc Barrels by Russian River (Santa Rosa, CA)
• The Name of the Rose by Referendum (Hopewell Township, NJ)
• Vintage 16 by New Glarus (New Glarus, WI)
• BA Cascara Coffee Tripel by Guinness Open Gate Brewery & Barrel House
• GA Farmhouse by Logsdon Farmhouse (Hood River, OR)

Key
BA = Barrel-Aged
APA = American Pale Ale
IPA = India Pale Ale
NE = New England

Visit this link for a list of all the GABF winners.

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