September 16-18 Denver, CO. The Great American Beer Festival: The American beer playground. The largest beer festival in the world, serving up 3523 different beers. That is an increase of over 7% over last year alone!!
One of the best things about the event is the commotion it brings to the Denver area. Colorado already has a lot of brew pubs, ale houses and quality draft bars. The whole concept of "good beer" goes so far beyond the foolish mid-atlantic's view that good beer is Yuengling. Don't get me wrong, I can drink Yuengling... but let's be real, it's no Southern Tier Mokah. Getting me off topic, like usual. As I was saying, COLORADO loves themselves some beer. You take this beer loving place and bring to it the biggest beer event in the world. The entire city adapts perfectly to the changes. We visited 2 really cool pubs before heading to the festival itself.: The Cheeky Monk Belgian Beer Cafe who had all 3 versions of the new Saison Du Buff, each brewed by Dogfish Head, Victory and Stone Brewing Companies. http://www.stonebrew.com/news/100225pr/ for more info. This beer was a collaboration of sorts brewing a traditionally spicy Saison but with the added flavors of different herbs such as sage, parsley, rosemary and thyme. Its wild and I am proud to say I enjoy the Victory brew the best. But as I was saying, the Cheeky Monk made a really big deal out of this and it was so exciting to be there while a couple of the brewers were as well.
The next spot we hit was an awesome pub named The Falling Rock Tap House(above). The FR Tap House has over 200 DRAFT BEERS that change weekly!!! Do you get this concept!?!?! We pulled up to the tap house and it was packed!! It was pouring out into the streets and we still made our way in to try a couple of brews. I loved the whole vibe of the tap house and I highly recommend anyone who comes to the Denver area to swing by and grab a beer! I can't even remember what I had EXCEPT THAT I TOTALLY REMEMBER WHAT I HAD!!!! We all had Pliney the Elder by Russian River!!!! Well, the guys had that while the ladies tried different sour beers, framboise, and cherry beers. All of which were amazing!! but the Pliney was special because we can't get Russian River over here in the east and it has become the standard of IPAs amongst the industry.
We had our beers and headed to the convention center... I HAVE NEVER SEEN A LINE SO BIG IN MY LIFE!!! It 8-10 people wide and as long as I could imagine. I thought it would take us hours to get in... but it didn't. We were in the center within a half hour! Looking at the map above you can notice that every tiny little number represents a different brewers table. As we walked in, we were totally wiped for the whole experience and grabbed our mini schooners to grab some beer and get the party started!
I mean, the place was huge!!! Obviously we had a couple spots we each wanted to hit. Brewers like great Divide, Oskar Blues, Russian River and Avery were ones we all wanted to hit. Of course I wanted everyone to try a couple of my favorite beers I've ever had, like Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout!! Any plan of action we had quickly disappeared. We never got drunk... no matter how much I regret that in hindsight... It was just that there was so much. Our best goal was to visit preferred brewers but if while on our way, we came across a brewer that had nobody at their table, in which we would stop and try a beer. That worked well for about 15 minutes and then we all lost each other again!!
There a lot of fun stuff that they had setup that convinced me that i will be going every year and for more than just one day. We tried a lot of really tasty beers from breweries that we never would have had before. They had a cool silent disco and loads of good food. Overall the experience was a blast and I look forward to next year!!!
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