The Great American Beer Festival. Such a grandiose name for a beer festival; and it should be, considering there are over 2,700 beers, 666 breweries, 49,000 attendees and endless amounts of pretzel necklaces all within the confines of the Denver Convention Center. This past weekend marked the 31st year of the festival and it was nothing short of amazing, minus all the cropdusters walking around the convention floor. I was fortunate enough to make it out to the Mile High City and even though I wasn’t able to taste all 2,700 beers, I am proud to say that San Diego breweries took home 17 medals this year. That’s right, San Diego’s finest breweries got their taste of the gold, silver and bronze medals that were awarded to 84 different categories of beer. For your reading pleasure, here is a list of the local winners:
AleSmith Brewing Co. - Alesmith Decadence ‘10 Old Ale - Old Ale or Strong Ale - Bronze Medal
AleSmith Brewing Co. - AleSmith Grand Cru - Belgian Style Stong Specialty Ale - Bronze Medal
Alpine Beer Co. - Duet - American-Style India Pale Ale - Bronze Medal
Green Flash Brewing - Silva Stout - Wood and BarrelAged Strong Stout - Silver Medal
Green Flash Brewing - Green Flash Trippel - Belgian Style Abbey Ale - Gold Medal
Green Flash Brewing - Le Freak - American-Belgo-Style Ale - Gold Medal
Port Brewing Co. - Hot Rocks Lager - Indigenous Beer - Bronze Medal
Pizza Port Solana Beach - Oats - Oatmeal Stout - Gold Medal
Pizza Port Solana Beach - Seaside Stout - Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout - Gold Medal
Pizza Port Carlsbad - Twerp - Session Beer - Gold Medal
Pizza Port Carlsbad - 547 Haight - Imperial Red Ale - Bronze Medal
Pizza Port San Clemente - Way Heavy - Scotch Ale - Gold Medal
Pizza Port San Clemente - Order in the Port - American Style Stout - Gold Medal
The Beer Co. - The Manhattan Project - Wood and Barrel Aged Strong Beer - Gold Medal
The Lost Abbey - Track #8 - Experimental Beer - Bronze Medal
The Lost Abbey - Saint’s Devotion - Belgian and French Style Ale - Gold Medal
The Lost Abbey - Red Poppy - American Style Sour Ale - Silver Medal
Now that you’ve seen the winners, it wouldn’t hurt to pay them a visit and see if they have some of their award winning beers on tap! I’m particularly proud to see Alpine’s Duet amongst the winners.
You would think that after a Great American Beer Fest weekend, I would decide to take a break, right? Wrong! This weekend I’m heading up to the Santa Barbara Beer Festival where a whole lineup of central and southern California breweries will be pouring their finest brews. My band, The Green Almighty, is going to be playing a set at the fest, which I am extremely excited about, but I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for some of the San Diego breweries.
Also, don’t forget that San Diego Beer Week is coming up soon. Nov. 2nd - Nov. 11th to be exact. If you haven’t already, cruise on over to their events page here and start planning now because there are already some amazing events lined up! Are you gonna’ skip out of work early for some the events? I know I am!
Cheers,
Charles Eck
Showing posts with label great american beer fest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great american beer fest. Show all posts
Friday, October 19, 2012
Friday, October 07, 2011
Rockin The Casbah, GABF and Bloggin Beer: All in A Week's Time
I’m feeling very lucky these days. Last Thursday my band, The Green Almighty, was fortunate enough to win the opening spot for SoundDiego Live at The Casbah. We shared the stage with two extremely talented bands, The Get Down Automatic and Dead Feather Moon. On top of all the great music the evening had to offer, there was free food and free beers from Cold Spring Brewing Company. I wasn’t able to try any of the Cold Spring brews, but I wasn’t too worried about that considering the weekend I had ahead of me. More about that later. During the festivities, I was able to introduce myself to Rosemary Bystrak and talk to her about the bands, San Diego’s music scene and craft beer in general. She had mentioned in the midst of our conversation the need for someone to blog about craft beer for San Diego: DialedIn and my attention was immediately caught, but just like that, we both needed refills. We went our separate ways and enjoyed the rest of the night at The Casbah. As I stood at the bar waiting to order my next beer, I remembered that I had to get my ass out of there, lug my drums back home, load them into my garage, pack a suitcase and hop on a plane the next morning at 6am towards Denver for the 2011 Great American Beer Festival!
For those who aren’t familiar, The Great American Beer Festival is an annual event that takes place during the fall in beautiful Denver, Colorado. The festival is open to the public and features some of the finest craft breweries from across the United States. This year alone, over 50,000 tickets were sold out for the three day event! I was lucky enough to get my ticket the day before it sold out, so I figured I had to make the most of my time there. Let’s just say I was like a kid in a candy store, except instead of candy, there was over 2,400 beers from over 480 breweries. I barely could contain myself. I can barely contain myself writing about it.
For those who aren’t familiar, The Great American Beer Festival is an annual event that takes place during the fall in beautiful Denver, Colorado. The festival is open to the public and features some of the finest craft breweries from across the United States. This year alone, over 50,000 tickets were sold out for the three day event! I was lucky enough to get my ticket the day before it sold out, so I figured I had to make the most of my time there. Let’s just say I was like a kid in a candy store, except instead of candy, there was over 2,400 beers from over 480 breweries. I barely could contain myself. I can barely contain myself writing about it.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Great American Beer Festival: San Diego Wins Big
My beer blogger extraordinaire, Jonathan, has been in Denver all week for the Great American Beer Festival. Judging by his tweets, it was a helluva a week for a beer geek so I'm sure his recap will take some time. In the meantime, I thought I'd post the winners since San Diego walked away with several medals. Most of those were by Pizza Port, but Ballast Point, Karl Strauss, Lost Abbey, and Stone all got some honors as well. To see the full list, click here. Below are some of the San Diego area winners...I included the Pizza Port San Clemente wins because a win for any Pizza Port is good for all of us, as well as a Black Market win (from Temecula).
Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year: Pizza Port Carlsbad
Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year: Pizza Port San Clemente
Gold Medals:
Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year: Pizza Port Carlsbad
Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year: Pizza Port San Clemente
Gold Medals:
- Out of Category/Traditionally Brewed Beer: Fathom IPL, Ballast Point
- English-Style India Pale Ale: Beech Street Bitter, Pizza Port Carlsbad
- Irish-Style Red Ale: Red Trolley Ale, Karl Strauss Brewing Co.
- Scotch Ale: Reed’s Wee Heavy, Pizza Port Carlsbad
- Belgian-Style Strong Specialty Ale: Revelations, Pizza Port Carlsbad
- Rye Beer: BMB Rye IPA, Black Market Brewing Co. (Temecula)
- American-Style India Pale Ale: “Pseudo” IPA, Pizza Port San Clemente
- Imperial India Pale Ale: Doheny Double IPA, Pizza Port San Clemente
- Coffee Flavored Beer: Coffee Monster, Pizza Port Carlsbad
- Other Strong Beer: Panzer Pilsner, Port Brewing Co.
- Herb and Spice or Chocolate Beer: Stone Smoked Porter with Chipotle, Stone Brewing Co.
- English-Style Mild Ale: Skidmark Brown, Pizza Port Ocean Beach
- English Style Brown Ale: Good Grief Brown, Pizza Port Carlsbad
- Imperial Stout: Night Rider Imperial Stout, Pizza Port Carlsbad
- Out of Category/Traditionally Brewed Beer: Hot Rocks Lager, Port Brewing
- American-Style India Brown Ale: Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale, Stone Brewing Co.
- Classic Irish-Style Dry Stout: Port Truck Stout, Pizza Port Carlsbad
- American-Style Sour Ale: Red Poppy, Lost Abbey
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Great American Beer Fest Recap 2009
(ed note: SD:Dialed In contributor Jonathan spent some time up at the Great American Beer Fest in Denver. This is his recap of the event. In other beer news, Mens Journal chose San Diego as the Number 1 beer town in America. Jonathan took several photos, you can see his Picasa album here. )
There is one thing that is for sure, I can't stop thinking thinking about GAB-F. I felt like a giddy kid again walking aisle to aisle of nothing but beer. There was a tons of food there, too, but I just want to talk about beer. Otherwise I will never finish this post. Every year there's this beer mecca that occurs in Denver, Colorado, that spoken in tongue by me as GAB-F or otherwise known as the Great American Beer Festival. I have been home brewing for a few years now so this year I made the call and congregated to Denver, Colorado, where I attempted to drink every beer I could set my sights on. I failed... but I was close! It just so happens to be the largest beer festival in North America with over 7 1/2 acres of beer. It was love at first sight. For full recap, click 'keep on reading' below.
My first night in Denver was spent drinking with friends at the Falling Rock near Coors Field. Supposedly, the beer at a mile high is supposed to affect you a little more but I never felt altitude, although I did witness others feeling the effects. Falling Rock in LoDo (Lower Downtown), owned by Clint Black, has a tap list that will make your jaw drop. The pub is filled with old bottle trophies of beers I had never seen and their kitchen stays up late. Did I mention their kitchen stays open late? Everything there is reasonably priced and since this was the week of GABF is was even packed with more rarities than normal.
The following night I walked more south and wandered over to Wyncoop. Wyncoop is known as Denver's first brewpub. Their menu is balanced between a pub and a chop house. I had the Mighty Red Gumbo and Shepherd's Pie but I was thinking about Venison after a few beers. Wyncoop occupies the whole building and would be a go-to place for dinner paired with some beers. From there, I walked north along Blake, passing Falling Rock to 22nd which happens to be perpendicular from Coors. About 7 blocks down is a brewery called Great Divide. There, I drank a Rye lager called Hoss that was clean and a little spicy from what I can remember. After drinking a bomber of a Yeti my taste buds were shot so I headed to bed. If you haven't noticed, everything is in walking distance. I recommend bringing a good pair of shoes if you want to explore the city like I did.
GABF Festival is broken into four sessions with the competition medals being announced during the third session. My first session was spent mostly drinking beers from the bigger breweries. Unfortunately, there were lines since everybody seemed to have the same game plan and I did. The most memorable beers from the first night were sours from New Glaurus and Guild Row as I like to call it. On Guild Row, I got a brief introduction to breweries I had never heard of from across the country. I got to interact with the brewers who were pouring their beers and I picked their brains mostly for home brewing purposes.. That was definitely one of my highlights. Although party time seemed to end quickly, I wasn't worried because there were three more sessions. I quickly exited with friends and headed to Appaloosa Grill around the corner to counter my drinking binge.
Friday's session was more of a walk through the park to me compared to Thursday. No I didn't wake up with a hangover. I was surprised myself. I didn't have a plan and I just enjoyed myself more. I got my first taste of The Bruery's Black Tuesday which I had been looking for. Some of the different beers I remember were the Samuel Adam's Utopias, a smoked chili pepper bock and the Pro-Am beers. The pro-Am beers are beers created by a amateur and professional brewer. This year featured the most pro-am beers and I spent a lot of time in front of the Pro-Am booth. The beers changed everyday and the Pro-Am category was awarded a medal on Saturday. You can view the winners on the GABF website here.
The first session on Saturday was more of the same thing as the Friday session. I spent most of my time with friends who lived in Denver who had never had most of these beers. We would walk around the floor and sample beers but this time from a glass. Of course I drank more local goodness like Black Tuesday and Autumn Maple from the Bruery, Speedway Stout and Wee Heavy from Alesmith, and whatever was left from Pizza Port. When the medals started to be announced we quickly headed to the opening speech by Norm (of Cheers fame) and later to drink more beer while everyone was watching the medals being handed out. After the session ended, I headed north to catch Dr. Bill's beer tasting in the basement of Falling Rock. There I sampled beers like the Old Ale from Alesmith and Trappist Westvleteren 12. I think the comraderie among beer geeks was phenomenal and sharing wasn't a probablem. The space was small and Bill was generous enough to share these beers with use for a small donation to help pay for the location. Cheers to Bill for a outstanding event by the way. After about a hour or so tasting I just hit the sack for a early morning flight out of Denver.
Although I breifly spoke of what I did in Denver the list of events was never ending. There was an Oktoberfest just down the street that I never got time to visit as well as all the breweries in the outlying cities I never got to explore. I never had one bad moment there, the weather was colder than I expected but I was inside most of the time. The people in Denver were hospitable, the food was amazing, and then of course, the beers. I hate to admit this but lately I have been beered out. Unforetunately, Sunday Football is starting and I have to finish off a couple of kegs so I can brew again!
There is one thing that is for sure, I can't stop thinking thinking about GAB-F. I felt like a giddy kid again walking aisle to aisle of nothing but beer. There was a tons of food there, too, but I just want to talk about beer. Otherwise I will never finish this post. Every year there's this beer mecca that occurs in Denver, Colorado, that spoken in tongue by me as GAB-F or otherwise known as the Great American Beer Festival. I have been home brewing for a few years now so this year I made the call and congregated to Denver, Colorado, where I attempted to drink every beer I could set my sights on. I failed... but I was close! It just so happens to be the largest beer festival in North America with over 7 1/2 acres of beer. It was love at first sight. For full recap, click 'keep on reading' below.
My first night in Denver was spent drinking with friends at the Falling Rock near Coors Field. Supposedly, the beer at a mile high is supposed to affect you a little more but I never felt altitude, although I did witness others feeling the effects. Falling Rock in LoDo (Lower Downtown), owned by Clint Black, has a tap list that will make your jaw drop. The pub is filled with old bottle trophies of beers I had never seen and their kitchen stays up late. Did I mention their kitchen stays open late? Everything there is reasonably priced and since this was the week of GABF is was even packed with more rarities than normal.
The following night I walked more south and wandered over to Wyncoop. Wyncoop is known as Denver's first brewpub. Their menu is balanced between a pub and a chop house. I had the Mighty Red Gumbo and Shepherd's Pie but I was thinking about Venison after a few beers. Wyncoop occupies the whole building and would be a go-to place for dinner paired with some beers. From there, I walked north along Blake, passing Falling Rock to 22nd which happens to be perpendicular from Coors. About 7 blocks down is a brewery called Great Divide. There, I drank a Rye lager called Hoss that was clean and a little spicy from what I can remember. After drinking a bomber of a Yeti my taste buds were shot so I headed to bed. If you haven't noticed, everything is in walking distance. I recommend bringing a good pair of shoes if you want to explore the city like I did.
GABF Festival is broken into four sessions with the competition medals being announced during the third session. My first session was spent mostly drinking beers from the bigger breweries. Unfortunately, there were lines since everybody seemed to have the same game plan and I did. The most memorable beers from the first night were sours from New Glaurus and Guild Row as I like to call it. On Guild Row, I got a brief introduction to breweries I had never heard of from across the country. I got to interact with the brewers who were pouring their beers and I picked their brains mostly for home brewing purposes.. That was definitely one of my highlights. Although party time seemed to end quickly, I wasn't worried because there were three more sessions. I quickly exited with friends and headed to Appaloosa Grill around the corner to counter my drinking binge.
Friday's session was more of a walk through the park to me compared to Thursday. No I didn't wake up with a hangover. I was surprised myself. I didn't have a plan and I just enjoyed myself more. I got my first taste of The Bruery's Black Tuesday which I had been looking for. Some of the different beers I remember were the Samuel Adam's Utopias, a smoked chili pepper bock and the Pro-Am beers. The pro-Am beers are beers created by a amateur and professional brewer. This year featured the most pro-am beers and I spent a lot of time in front of the Pro-Am booth. The beers changed everyday and the Pro-Am category was awarded a medal on Saturday. You can view the winners on the GABF website here.
The first session on Saturday was more of the same thing as the Friday session. I spent most of my time with friends who lived in Denver who had never had most of these beers. We would walk around the floor and sample beers but this time from a glass. Of course I drank more local goodness like Black Tuesday and Autumn Maple from the Bruery, Speedway Stout and Wee Heavy from Alesmith, and whatever was left from Pizza Port. When the medals started to be announced we quickly headed to the opening speech by Norm (of Cheers fame) and later to drink more beer while everyone was watching the medals being handed out. After the session ended, I headed north to catch Dr. Bill's beer tasting in the basement of Falling Rock. There I sampled beers like the Old Ale from Alesmith and Trappist Westvleteren 12. I think the comraderie among beer geeks was phenomenal and sharing wasn't a probablem. The space was small and Bill was generous enough to share these beers with use for a small donation to help pay for the location. Cheers to Bill for a outstanding event by the way. After about a hour or so tasting I just hit the sack for a early morning flight out of Denver.
Although I breifly spoke of what I did in Denver the list of events was never ending. There was an Oktoberfest just down the street that I never got time to visit as well as all the breweries in the outlying cities I never got to explore. I never had one bad moment there, the weather was colder than I expected but I was inside most of the time. The people in Denver were hospitable, the food was amazing, and then of course, the beers. I hate to admit this but lately I have been beered out. Unforetunately, Sunday Football is starting and I have to finish off a couple of kegs so I can brew again!
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