After quite a few years of venue hopping, the Colorado Brewers Guild’s Collaboration Fest may have found a perfect home at the Westin Westminster. The facilities were top notch, and with the ability to stay in the hotel just a few floors above the festival, it made it much easier for out-of-towners to attend. Combine that with an already-stellar field of beers, to make this year’s Collaboration Fest rise above the rest. Nice work CBG and all the staff who poured countless hours into making this fest unforgettable.

The fest this year was split up into two separate rooms, each with an oval layout of breweries, which made it easy to get around and find the beers you wanted to try. For the most part, if a brewery had more than one collaboration, they were situated right in line, so brewers could float between multiple collabs. The only exception we saw was the Colorado Media collaboration with Novel Strand, which for some inexplicable reason, was off on its own, while the other two Novel Strand collabs were split by a random collaboration. It made it extremely difficult for the Novel Strand people to be in two places at once, so that’s my only complaint on the layout.

Our collab with Novel Strand, off on its own, stranded from the other Novel Strand beers.

Beer-wise, there were a ton of standard-style beers, albeit with non-standard ingredients, and then there were some outliers. For me, the outliers overshadowed everything else, most notably Mockery Brewing and Baere made two soda-inspired brews, one mimicking Ruby Red Squirt and the other a natural Cola. Both were based on a sour ale, which brought the necessary acidity to match the soda inspiration. Beyond the flavors that surprised us, some brewers went above and beyond when it came to garnishes or accoutrements for their beers. There were beers with cups lined with mushrooms and blue glitter, to really bring the mushroom flavor to the forefront, and we can’t not mention the paper bags Strange Craft and Guanella Pass were providing to surround your glass, showcasing their malt liquor collaboration. It’s those extra touches that make the experience all the more better.

Thanks to the CBG and the staff at the Westin for putting on an excellent festival—here’s hoping Collab Fest has found a long-term home!

Oh, and we took some other photos when we weren’t busy chatting with old friend and brewers we hadn’t seen in years.

Calm before the storm

The line was fairly long at first, but they moved people through fairly fast!

Always good to see our Telluride Brewing friends at a Front Range beer fest!

Oh look, some Colorado Springs peeps!

One of the best touches that Collab Fest provides is a welcome beer, so attendees are instantly given something to sip on as they begin to explore.

The Phantom Canyon and OCC crews represented Colorado Springs well with two versions of a Biere de Garde, plus OCC’s collab with Barrels and Bottles— a Belgian Pilsner —was freaking amazing.

Mushroom and blue glitter rimmed glasses? Only at Collaboration Fest!

Denver’s Live Slow brewing (a bowling/brewery that’s slated to open later this year) teamed up with Telluride on a killer West Coast IPA.

Even Peter Bouckaert got in on the beer engine fun!

This is ekphrasis.

Oh Look! Sam Sly from Beer n Loathing!

Nice to have Tony Rau and his wife Nomie make the trip from Bend, OR for the fest. It’s been years since we’ve seen Tony, and it really made the fest even more awesome!

What’s a fest without some hang time with Jordan from Woods Boss?

Ska’s West Coast Pilsner was a hot ticket item…there was a constant line!

Which Paul Myhill is this?

Josh and I had the opportunity to chat beer with Emily O’Keefe and her husband Tommy for much of the evening. Emily writes for the newly-created COS Beer Blog, check her stuff out!