GABF

Thursday night Marlys and I went to the Great American Beer Festival at the Denver Convention Center. We had tried to go last year but found out after standing in line for about an hour that if you didn't already have a ticket you were out of luck.

This year we bought our tickets early and living downtown made for a simple walk over and home without needing a designated driver.

We showed up early but still ended up at the end of a line that stretched around the convention center. Once in, with our official GABF glasses for the 1oz pours, there were 406 brewery's from which to select. We came no where near trying all of the brewery's let alone the 1884 different brews that were there, but we did learn a few things.

• Marlys is not an ale drinker, especially India Pale Ales (IPA).
• Many of the stouts almost tasted like a whiskey.
• Apricot Wheat is my favorite fruit beer.
• There are a lot of bad beers.
• This was a real friendly crowd.
• It is possible to get beered out.

Most of the time the tasting was one or two sips then throw the rest in a slop bucket and rinse the glass out for the next brew. Even with the crowds we rarely waited more then a 1 or 2 minutes to try a brew.

Out of the ~40 brews (of 1884) we tried here are the brewery's (of 408) we thought would be worth a second look.

• Alltech's Lexington Brewing Co.
• Great Adirondack Brewing Co.
• Hale's Ales Brewing
• Redrock Brewing Co.
• Rooters Brewing Co.
• Smugglers Brewpub and Grill
• Trumer Brauerei

We didn't try those that are local and/or easily available, e.g. New Belgium, Breckenridge, Flying Dog, Tommy Knocker, Sierra Nevada etc.

It was also sometimes hard to smile when someone would tell you they mortgaged the house and spent the savings to start their brewery, when the brew was bad. In fact, I thought that the brews I made back in the 80's were better then some of ones I tried.

Hey maybe I should get back into it...and start a brewpub ;>