99 Beers at the Great American Beer Festival 2019

Ashiyah and I visited this year’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver. It brings over 800 breweries and 4,000 beers to the US’s largest celebration of craft beer.

Sadly trying all 4,000 was not on the cards, but over two three hour sessions my trusty glass conveyed 99 samples for my tasting pleasure.

Day One (Thursday)

My two favorites of the night were two imperial stouts from the Chicago area - Moody Tongue’s Gingerbread and Flossmoor Station’s Shadow of the Moon. Perhaps I have a ‘type’ after all.

Strangest of the night goes to Reality Checker (sour series) from Florida’s Crooked Thumb, which was described as a Berliner Weisse but tasted precisely like an orange creamsicle.

Day Two (Saturday Afternoon)

Top beer of the day goes to the Mexican Stout by Ship Bottom Brewery out of Beach Haven NJ. A gorgeous stout brewed with coffee, chocolates, ancho chipotle peppers, cinnamon, lactose and vanilla beans.

Runner up goes to Master Blend: Orange Cream from Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Brewery. The orange peel adds to the imperial stout base without overwhelming it.

Local Washington Flavor

Two beers from Washington’s Whatcom and Skagit counties went home with awards - a gold medal for Wander’s Correspondent Foreign Extra Stout, plus a bronze for Chuckanut’s Fest Bier (believe it’s brewed at their Burlington location).

Tips For Your Next Visit

• As you can see in the header image of this post, GABF is a packed conventional hall. Thousands of attendees crowd every lane between the beer stalls. Beating the crowds entirely is largely impossible, but if you’d like a slightly quieter experience I recommend aiming for the second half of each session. Unfortunately, you will also experience more drunks, but I only encountered one bad drunk in my six hours. 
• Volunteers at each stall are instructed to pour 1oz tasters; in reality they typically pour 1.5-2oz. That may seem like a tiny amount but it is more than enough to get a sense of the beer. In fact, if you are aiming to experience many beers in a single session, I would strongly recommend not finishing a taster unless you’re particularly enjoying it. Save that acreage in your liver for something better. 
• If you like to document each beer you could use an app like Untappd, but they can be rather slow as you try to jump from beer to beer. I’d recommend either scribbling notes on paper, or using the voice memo function on your phone to record a few thoughts. 
• There are eight bathrooms around the convention hall but they will always have queues. If you’re comfortable using a Porta Pottie, there are ~90 available in a loading dock on the Champa St side of the hall - no queue needed. 
• Take a reusable bottle to fill with water. You’ll need to hydrate but GABF only provides 5oz disposable cups with their water coolers. Queuing for a few minutes to get 5oz of water isn’t good enough. 
• There are photo booths dotted around the arena but don’t rely on them for top quality pictures. They featured the selfie camera of four year old Microsoft tablets, which are substantially worse than a selfie from almost any cellphone these days. Example below.