GABF 2013: Which brewers got locked out?

Where such an opportunity exists, people can get very creative in a very short period of time. If a secondary event gets thrown together, in Denver or elsewhere, I'll be first in line to get a ticket to that. Still will be going to GABF, too, though. It might be a really interesting experience this year with potentially fewer booths to go wael hunting.

 

So will the festival be saturated with more mediocre breweries this year?

 

Let the speculation begin. The GABF is dead. Long live the GABF!

 

Love how it's always server issues.

 

I think you meant SERVICE issues.

 

They were probably too busy trying to keep up with production with their 30 gallon stock pot to remember to register.

 

I think that every brewery that won a GABF award and is willing to come back should have automatic entry. From there let the raffle/ sign-up for the remaining slots open up. This will guarantee some high quality beers and force breweries to choose what to attend/ bring to the festival.

 

I like what you're thinking but think it needs to be more like tennis, etc. (where a player has to defend his/her ranking status or loses points and therefore ranking status). Otherwise, as the article stated we'll keep seeing Bristol while up and coming hot breweries might get shut out. No offense if you love Bristol but I'd rather see breweries like Toppling Goliath there (they may have won an award at GABF but I don't remember seeing them on the lists - but you get the point). I'm guessing I'm not the only person in that boat.

 

Seems like I was reading something about this on FB.... Maybe it was just a notional happy day dream.

 

well there will never be a "fair" system per se, but something needs to occur to prevent this from happening. You would need to create multiple rules and systems in order for something to work. I like your points/ ranking system for sure. Perhaps awarding points for Gold/ Silver/ Bronze for each beer they entered and the top X number or breweries gets re-entry. I understand that someone like Bristol wins awards, but so does Coors, Pabst, Miller, etc...

 

Everyone's taste buds are different though, which is why they have so many categories now. Again, you cannot have one rule that makes everything fair or equitable, but it is a start.

 

Overall, seems like a good problem to have and the people that missed out were snoozing or underestimated the interest.

I agree with there needing to be some sort of first right of refusal process for returning entrants.

 

It is hard to say why each brewery was left out; their issues, paperwork, timing, etc. So I agree that at face value you want to change the system, but do not know what caused the issue.

 

That's true...but the same can be said of a lot of competitions. GABF is at a point where they're going to need to refine how they let entrants in or it's going to be like letting the most tech savvy guy play in the Masters just because he clicked and typed faster than Tiger Woods. I'm just brainstorming on how they might do that...naturally one way to do it is to actually make the awards give weight towards future entrances to GABF. You have pointed out one flaw in that system of course. I clearly don't know the nitty-gritty but the point remains that some refining should occur.

 

GABF just needs to become a 5 day festival instead of three, let a few other breweries in. Maybe rotate a few rookie breweries that may not have enough beer anyways.

 

Curious how many breweries will run out of beer this year?

 

You're right...it is. Above all, I just think they need to come up with a better system than be the first X amount of brewers to sign up. If it's the most prestigious beer event it's going to lose prestige if great breweries are getting shut out. Everything else I've said above is one man's unsolicited brainstorming...haha.