GABF Week (2023)

Superdamp is back on draft today at Comrade. Limited distro, maybe 8 kegs total going out

 

The Porch Drinking guide is up, https://www.porchdrinking.com/artic...te-porchdrinking-2023-gabf-week-events-guide/

 

Crossing my fingers that this one makes it to the Tap and Handle

 

A half barrel is being delivered today

 

I was planning to attend with my second son and fiancé, but will be in Seattle this weekend visiting my oldest son and his fiance for his birthday. My son is planning on attending and will probably hit the Hops and Pies Event on Thursday. Enjoy!

 

I've done a writeup on my blog of breweries I'm looking forward to visiting, should anyone care to check it out. Mostly the names you would expect to hear, though maybe there will be a few you didn't have on your lists. Still working on the T-Z brewery post.
www.abqbeergeek.com

 

I'm just going to wander and try things that sound good this year. I find that's always fun (and leads to some surprises), especially with so many places sitting this one out. Hopefully I'll find some new hidden gems from places I've never even heard of.

 

For this week you can basically walk into what I consider the Big 3 (Finns Manor, Hops and Pie, First Draft) at any point this week and find some fantastic stuff. Last night had Superdamp, Hill Farmstead & Fidens at Finns and all were fantastic. Didn't even have time for a Heady Topper.

Also looks like Lawsons and Maine Beer drop this afternoon (9/20) in the liquor stores

 

Looks like the B&B rolled out their GABF list: https://bullandbush.com/pages/menu#beermenu

 

I've eaten at Bull & Bush a million times. Honestly, I've never loved their beer. It's fine, but I'd always end up getting a Superpower when they had that on tap.

HOWEVER, I tried Royal Oil for the first time a few months ago. What an amazing beer. Easily in the top 5 barrel-aged beer I've had. Looks like they have it on tap for GABF.

 

Niiiiiice … saw their truck with the 74 taps plates loaded up yesterday afternoon on the interstate!

 

Their beers are interesting, because they're kinda dependent on what styles you like and what they happen to have at the time. Their big and barrel-aged beers have always been great, but the normal items kinda vary. The ESB and weissbier = killer. The ESB is probably in my all-time CO top 10, even. Man Beer is solid if you dig something akin to Dale's. The other items can vary wildly since they aren't afraid to experiment with strange flavors. In the past, most of their hoppy beers have been pretty lacking. Most of that seems to have reversed course in the last 18-24 months. Their current brewing team seems to have made them a priority. Ditto with QA/QC. Some of those milder beers didn't hold up well beyond a week or two, but they seem to have fixed that.

 

Hops and Pies was delivering the hits yesterday and seem to have inherited the trailer from Falling Ricks and were pouring Russian River, Casey, Pfriem, Trillium, Alchemist, and a bunch of other hits.

 

Anybody go to the Thursday session? Any sleeper hits?

 

Dear GABF organizers. Great work overall. But come on this is a huge festival and every single water station is in only one place? Let's change that back next year...

 

Can I take a stab at translating this?

Gripe = only one water station in the whole convention center?

 

It was really odd. There were maybe a half dozen water stations all next to each other and nada anywhere else in the building. I'm sure it made someone's job way easier, but not having water conveniently located was a questionable decision. For the longest time we assumed something was up and there was no water until we finally stumbled upon that one area.

 

Whenever I rinsed my cup, I drank the water in it… absolutely still ended up browned out at 4:30, but its a beer fest so I kinda earned this hangover

 

Yeah, pretty much every brewery had one or two pitchers of water. It's all potable water.

 

That's been my habit in years past as well. 2 water to 1 beer.