9.30.11 Great American Beer Festival - Denver CO

One of our bucket list items was to go to the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). This festival brings together breweries from all over the country. We had two tickets to two sessions: Friday night and Saturday afternoon. The sessions are 4 hours of drinking… I mean sampling different beers from across the country.

We arrived in Denver in the morning and headed over to a local French restaurant for lunch. After getting our fill of carbs, we headed to our hotel where Oskar Blues had taken over the taps.

We have our first mile high beers. I headed up to the room to make our pretzel necklaces – a must for any beer tasting.

Our other friends were hesitant to wear the necklaces, but were singing its praises by the end of the first session. We headed out for four hours of drinking. I made it about two hours before I needed a pizza break. I just couldn’t keep up. The amount of beer was overwhelming. Some key highlights were the Oskar Blues Silent Disco where everyone in the roped off area wears headphones and the DJ spins some tunes.

The other unique offering was the 30^th anniversary booth featuring the beers that were at the very first GABF. Some brewers even dug out the old recipes.

Saturday morning, we headed to Sam’s #3 for breakfast. Sam’s was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It was worth the hour wait. The pork green chile was fantastic!!!

 I was ready for Day Two – pretzel necklace in place. We hit the booths. This time we decided to brave the cheese line. The wait was 45 precious beer drinking minutes. Thankfully, we had a plan. I stood in line and Glenn went to the nearby booths and brought beer back to me. The cheese booth was very impressive once we got to the front. Plus they were pouring some of the beers that had the longest wait so it evened out. After the session, we headed across the street to sample more beer! We worked out way down the street to our dinner reservation at Rioja. Everyone had a great meal – except for me. I drew the short straw with a terrible pasta dish. The dish had no sauce – none – not even a little dribble of butter. It was a mess. After dinner, we headed to Wynkoop Brewing to try some of their brews, then to Hayters’ Club and then I was done. We hit up Jimmy John’s and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday, we headed to see a good friend from college for brunch and then headed out to Boulder for some more beer. We visited Avery Brewing and Twisted Pine. Avery was fantastic.

 We tried their tap room exclusives and Glenn loved the barrel aged sour. We were not a big fan of the beers at Twisted Pine so our visit there was short. We swung by another friend’s house and then hit the airport after a fantastic weekend in Denver.

For those interested, our favorite beers were:

Pizza Port Bacon and Eggs Stout

Duck Rabbit Milk Stout

Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale

Russian River Imperial Stout

Breckinridge Barrel Aged Vanilla Porter

21^st Amendment Watermelon Wheat

Crabtree Chunkin Pumpkin

Airdale Dark and Stormy

Ska Fresh Hops

Mad River Chile Beer

Avery Out of sight house blend stout

Avery Eremita

Avery’s Ellie’s Brown Ale

Hollister Tiny Bubbles