2019 Great American Beer Festival - Recap
Due to some technical difficulties and schedule issues, our Great American Beer Festival recap has been slow to arrive but trust, dear reader, that we would not disappoint you by not having one. You have likely already heard our podcast post-GABF featuring Jeff Lockhart from Dueces Wild Brewery where we discussed their gold medal-winning Knuckle Dragger Scotch ale. If you prefer to listen instead of reading - that episode can be found here.
The Brewer’s Association put on another great event this year, with some solid improvements over the previous year’s festival. Gone was the last year’s much-maligned alphabetical layout with a return to a regional-based floor layout. Gone also, were the plastic glasses for the evening sessions, as the return was made to glass glassware. While we think this improves on the experience, it certainly resulted in more broken glassware during the festival itself. It was a nice change and we hope they’ll stick with it.
One thing that didn’t work so well was the ‘app’. We had some reservations about it in our preview post, and it seemed to not be ready for prime time this year. Connectivity is always a challenge in the venue and with that many people trying to use data it just doesn’t work intuitively like an ‘app’ people are used to. We expect it will improve next year.
Outside of the festival itself, we enjoyed some time at Liberati Restaurant and Brewery - which we highly recommend you check out; a happy hour from Jameson Whiskey (who once again brought their expansive collaboration-focused booth to GABF); and a couple of impressive tap takeovers at Hops and Pie. Events around GABF are always worth the time and effort to roam around Denver in our experience.
Another highlight was the media breakfast put on Samuel Adams. This year the brunch was definitely different with the absence of Jim Koch, as he was in Germany, missing his first GABF since 1984! In his place, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head was on hand to discuss their merger and upcoming collaborations. We’re looking forward to a World Wide Stout aged in Utopias barrels that is coming out in March 2020.
Here’s our photo gallery from the event. Click on through for all the goodness!
