Great American Beer Fest!

Chris and I solidified our beer snob status (I think it is inevitable if you remotely like beer and live in Colorado) by attending GABF in Denver last weekend. We attended the "Home Brewers" session, though, so we were not nearly as nerdy as some of the people there. Common attire included hop farm t-shirts and pretzel necklaces (so you can cleanse your palate between beers) with (for the truly hardcore) bagel medalions. You definitely don't want to drink all of that beer on an empty stomach, but come on, does your food really have to be hanging around your neck at all times??

Anyway, the experience was slightly overwhelming. There were hundreds of breweries and thousands of beers to chose from, and only 4 hours and limited tolerance to try it all! We started with a plan. Chris was going to try IPA's and sour ales. I was going for wheat beers and porters. However, I soon decided I also wanted to try Belgian strong ales and reds, and anything else that sounded delicious. They are supposed to pour you 1 oz of each beer, but often that turns into about 2 oz, and since many of the exciting beers are also strong (9% or higher), things can get out of hand in a hurry. All in all, it was a great time!

We did manage to take notes (until the last 15 minutes when we were just frantically trying to visit as many breweries as possible ...). So here are some of our favorites, and some that were awful!

Fiftyfifty Brewing Co (Truckee, CA): Concentrated Evil (Belgian Strong - the beginning of the end of sobriety) and Donner Party Porter. This brewery seemed to have a lot of cool beers.

Iron Hill Brewery (Wilmington, DE): They had 16 beers to chose from, many that sounded great. We liked the Coffee Imperial Porter and Dunkelweiss.

Old Forge Brewing Co (Danville, PA): Chris said Petey's Porter was BAD.

Sly Fox (Royersford, PA): More trouble. Ichor Quadrupple (although it tasted kind of strong but was "only" 9%) and a yummy Saison

Upslope (Boulder): This is a fairly new brewery that hopefully we can visit sometime soon b/c they had good beers. A Pro-am ('time of the season') and an easy drinking Dunkel Weiss. Pro-am's are recipes from home brewers brewed by professionals.

Allagash (Portland, Maine): They have an 11% Trippel, which when it was poured for me the guy said, "You're gonna love this beer, but be careful." Then he poured me 2 ounces which I couldn't finish. He was right.

Russian River, CA: We were looking forward to trying these beers because Chris really likes their Damnation Ale. They had a lot of sours. Chris liked Consecration, but Empirical 7 "smelled and tasted like the cat's litter box."

Lost Abbey, CA: A yummy Abbey called 10 Commandments, and a really good sour Cuvee de Tomme.

Dogfish Head (DE): Chicha (strange! Brewed with chewed up corn. Yes, that's what I said. And it tasted like blue corn chips.)
Pangea (An ingredient from every continent. We liked it.)
Palo Santo (strong, good, salty, and sweet ... is this an accurate description or was it just getting late in the day? Drink it and find out.)

Bear Republic: I think my favorite beer of the day was Double Rocket, a red ale. I really like reds, they are just the right amount of hops (unlike IPA's, ick).

Ballast Point, San Diego, CA: Sour Wench tasted like vinegar and was awful.

Port Pizza, CA: Who would think a pizza chain would have such good beer?? We enjoyed a double red and the Silky Smooth Oatmeal Stout.

Stone Brewing Co, CA: Chris had a unique black IPA and liked it.

Blackstone Brewing Co., Nashville, TN: St Charles Porter, I liked this a lot and it won Gold for Brown Porters.

And finally, we are now enjoying Old Rasputin from North Coast Brewing Co. A yummy imperial stout that won Gold in the Harper Brew Fest 09, thanks to my friends Brian and Nikki.