GABF 2015 through the rear view mirror

You wouldn't know it from media reports, but the week is barely about medals.  (Which is a good thing, seeing as how we won none!)

​Loads of you likely have experienced the Great American Beer Festival in Denver and have your own impressions and memories of the hoopla.  Here are some of ours. (Page down if you want to skip to the pictures.)

People seem to begin flying in for beercations the weekend before the festival and some spend some quality time visiting breweries up here in FoCo.  This was a blast (photoless, however) -- meeting brewers and craft beer lovers from all over the country -- and some from further afield (ahem, Carolina & Leo) -- is a joy.  Goofy to say, but if you haven't felt that craft beer joy yet, I recommend sinking your life's work & savings into opening a craft brewery and experiencing how rejuvenated and elated and connected a week like this one makes you feel.   Folks traveling and gathering to share a love of craft is awesome.

​Craft-centric bars throughout Denver and Fort Collins (and, I'm guessing, several other cities) celebrate this week with special tappings of beers from all the heck over the place. Falling Rock Tap House in Denver and The Mayor of Old Town in Fort Collins tapped the last 2 kegs of our Rum Barrel Aged Coconut Porter (inventive name, we realize) on the same night, the Monday before the festival.  The Mayor created Tap Into Northern Colorado (TINC) a couple of years ago and has 100 Northern Colorado breweries' beers on tap for this week, partly so that we can enjoy our local brew scene, and partly so that people coming in from out of town who can't make it to every brewery can try a whopping number of them at The Mayor. Tap & Handle has special tappings each night for a week before the festival. Restaurants around town do all kinds of beer-related events. And, as you might imagine, Denver craft bars & restaurants go to town all week with awesome beers.

Truth be told, this pic is from last year.  Join the mayhem and sample some fantastic brews at Falling Rock Tap House every night of GABF week!

Tap Into Northern Colorado at The Mayor of Old Town showcases 100 NoCO beers.

We started our Denver days with a pairing of small plates with LoHi SteakBar on Tuesday night.  

We might have eaten twice our body weights.  But can you blame us?  Look at it.

Here was the conference that went on at the end of the bar when we got there -- between the staff who put on this amazing dinner every night, the owner, and his son.

How can you not love a restaurant that prints this?

​Eat local, people!

We hopped around The Highlands a bit and after a beer at Old Major we made Linsey carry the keg home (the awesome bar manager there was strapped for space as he'd stocked up beer for the week -- we like that kind of full fridge and kicked-keg-filled hallway).

[In real life, Luke helped.]

Thursday & Friday we had awesome brunch pairings at The Lobby (and got to crash a fellow's bachelor party,which he was having with some H&D).

Side note:  we met up with some long-time friends who where passing through from Cleveland.   Hi Greens!

​Throughout the week we got to visit great craft beer spots with fantastic food, and all were filled with folks celebrating this Week of Craft Beer in Denver.  Too cool!  It was crazy awesome to see our beer pouring at some of the places we've admired for their craft lineup for forever.  Huge thanks to those Denver bars who were willing to pour some H&D during GABF week!
​

We were a little gawker-ish in the Big City:

Hey, are you by chance attending a beer festival?

Vanimal's big day out.

The Big Blue Bear would like in too, plz.

.Cool to run into a couple of Weldwerks Brewing fellows on the walk downtown

Setting up our booth was fun and dead easy.
​
[We were greeted by our neighbors' "big-ass" sign behind us, though.  Kinda' sad it's in 90% of our photos!]

​The session opens each day with a bagpipe procession from the "opening gates" -- very cool!

Here they were coming by the booth a few minutes later:

The GABF sessions were a scene.  I'm a bit low on the people-watching photos, but here you go for a few:

Some of our favorite FoCo peeps.

Great tee.

In addition to a medal for Friar Chuck, Black Bottle Brewery wins for best-dressed.

We love these FoCo peeps!

Happy birthday, Titus!

Love this, too.  From Monument, natch.  
​Where people are very focused.

Now THAT'S a pretzel necklace!

​Tiffany & Ryan, of William Oliver's Publick House fame, might have found my phone at some point.

If you go, you must MUST go dance at the silent disco.  Ohmigosh.  From either side of the fence it is the best thing at GABF.  
Gitcherself there.

The Colorado State Legislature brews 2 beers (one by the House, one by the Senate) and if you visit the Colorado Brewers' Guild booth, y'all can sample each, meet a rep or two, and vote on which one you prefer.  I voted with the House this year, but I believe the Senate beer won.  Both were great!  Kudos to Cannonball Creek Brewing Company & Big Choice Brewing for brewing with these cats.

Fair warning that y'all want to empty your bladders before you enter GABF.  
​(And about time that this is the ratio at the restroom lines in a public place, am I right, ladies?)

Taken from the back of the men's room line 2 hours in.  See the "MEN" sign off there in the distance?

Taken from the back of the women's room line
​2 hours in.

We got to pour in the "Meet the Brewer" section (by lottery) and were psyched to staff our booth for all 4 sessions.  Here are Linsey & Titus holding down the fort, and Chad, Tim & Luke putting in some hard time.

​We might have been a bit tired between the 2 Saturday sessions.  

"Who's the creepy family passed out behind the palm fronds?"

We weren't alone. Here's what the brewers' space out the door of the main hall looked like at 5pm on Saturday.  

This place was an oasis.  You could step out of the fluorescent lighting and massive white-noise-din of the exhibition hall into this sanctuary of natural sunlight & relative silence.  One woman who walked out with us said, "Oh my gosh, I feel like I just walked out of prison!"

Yes, there was the bottling and submission of beers for judging weeks and weeks before (and yes, I should know the actual date!  Alas.).  In our case, that involved submitting the freshest batches of beer we had and sending them off with several other FoCo breweries' submissions in Snowball (Snowbank's delivery van -- many thanks to them for delivering!).  Luke then delivered kegs for pouring samples a couple of weeks ago.  We sat through the awards ceremony crossing fingers during our own categories (to no avail!) but also being so psyched that so many friends and acquaintances throughout the industry took home some hardware for their hard work, and celebrating the fact that so many states were represented in the medals.  The craft revolution is well and truly upon us and folks all over the U.S. are making great beer!

Here's how sad we were to head back to the last 2 sessions medal-less:

​With not-much-sleep and loads of standing-on-concrete, we were pretty happy to return to our "normal" lives up here in FoCo.  But we wouldn't trade the week for anything.  

Before

AFTER

It's loud, long, and a lot o' concrete-standing.  But it's full of awesome people & beer!  

Cheers to all those who love and support craft beer,
whether by making it, serving it, or drinking it. 
How great it is to have a festival together
​celebrating all of that!

Plus, how often do you get to see
​sharks getting off an escalator?  
Worth the price of admission.