Great American Beer Festival

Reporting from Denver, CO
(above photo credit: Andy Bern)

Something happened to Denver in the last 10 years while no one was looking.  It got cool.

I was in Denver for the last week for a conference and was "stuck" downtown for the entire week.  I gazed longingly at the surrounding mountains and nearby Boulder, unable to get the time or transportation away to these places that I love.  But, oddly enough, once I gave downtown Denver a chance I discovered that it has matured nicely since I was there last and has developed into a haven of culture.  The opera house and symphony hall complex is a soaring tribute to the arts.  The Museum of Art earns all the talk about its controversial architecture.  And the neighborhood surrounding Coors Field is riddled with quaint restaurants and bars.  One of these bars is worth noting: "The 1 Up" features dozens of classic upright arcade games (Pac-Man, Galaga, and yes, even Defender!) as well as giant Jenga games.  Very cool.

Don't get me wrong, Boulder is still the best.  By far.  But Denver is not just a gateway to the Rockies anymore.  (I still hate that their airport is an hour outside of town . . . )

I was in town for a conference, but it ended conveniently on the same day as the start of the Great American Beer Festival.  580 breweries offering over 2500 beers.  Oh yeah- I had to stay for that.  I logged into the website the moment tickets went on sale in August, but they were all sold out- the event sold out BEFORE they went on sale.  But there were ample tickets immediately available on Stub Hub for twice face value.  Hmmm.   Shenanigans!

Anyway, this was a unique right place- right time kind of moment, so I shelled out the extra bucks and got my pass for the first night.  I learned later that the first night is the most coveted; the breweries have just arrived and their product is at its most fresh.  The event started at 5:30 pm to run until 10:00 pm; I spent the day saving up my calories and doing some extra exercise.  This strategy later proved . . . unwise.

The best word to describe The Great American Beer Festival is overwhelming. There is just no possible way to sample everything.  They hand you a 1 oz tasting glass when you enter, then are turned loose on a massive convention floor space.  The entire convention hall is covered with booths, arranged regionally (Pacific, Mountain, Northwest, Midwest, etc).  Since each brewery has a booth and each booth offers samples of five or more beers, even if you kept to the tiniest region, New England, with 20 booths, you are looking at 100 oz in samples!

I sampled randomly as I walked, tasting many great beers (the best were usually IPA's) and quite a few mediocre ones.  The two most memorable beers were: a chili pepper beer from Mad River Brewery that was surprisingly complex and delicious (would have been outstanding with a burrito) and a coconut-chocolate stout from the Maui Brewing Company (almost like a liquid german chocolate cake).

Very briefly into my tastings, my lack of earlier eating became apparent.  I was absorbing the alcohol WAY too fast.  I tried to compensate with a quesadilla from the snack bar (where did that Mad River booth go?) but it was too little too late.  In the end, I only lasted two hours (embarrassing) but I did manage to sample 48 beers, a mere 2% of the available total.

The rest of the weekend was spent recovering.  And watching some great football.  Hats off to Notre Dame for their gritty, come from behind win over Stanford.  And no, Stanford did not get into in the end zone on the last play- the refs and the replay official made the right call.  Iowa's comeback over Michigan State was a surprise and knocked Sparty out of the Big 10 race.  And West Virginia discovered that not having a defense can be a painful thing when visiting Lubbock, Texas.

I would like to have more of that coconut chocolate beer.  I wonder if I can track some down when I am in Hawaii.

25 days, 21 hours, and 58 minutes!

Fight On,

Hans

PS:  The conference I attended had a silent auction that included this Jimmy Buffet signed guitar.  If only I hadnt spent so much on airfare and beer tickets . . .