GABF 2016

Did anybody try Scytale 385 from Great Basin out of Nevada? I think it is one of the top 3-5 imperial stouts I've had.

 

Fulton brewery out of mn had a good IPA called 300 mosaic I really liked. Resin from sixpoint was great and also got a chance to try sip of sunshine.

 

Had my first Melvin Brosaic at the fest and it was full of stars and unicorns.

 

Nice work Colorado:

38 Medals out of 286 (13.2%)
13 Golds
16 Silvers
9 Bronzes

Also congrats to Uberbrew for winning Small Brewing Company!

 

The upset of the comp came in the Export stout category, where Fade to Black finished second.

 

Uber took home a bunch of medals. I've never been to the brewery but every one of their bottled beers I've had is middle of the road at best. Although I heard those might be contract brewed. Got to be in Billings in a few weeks, looking forward to stopping in and checking them out.

 

I think Fort Collins brewing is who does their bottled beer. They also have really good food.

 

Tin Man brewing at Evansville IN had some amazing beers

 

Not sure why, but Colorado's final number of medals seemed lower than years past. Was it me, or did it seem NC medaled in a lot of categories this year. Good for them.

 

J. Wakefield is serious business, and I normally think those sorts of beers are a joke.
Beachwood BBQ's lambic inspired beers tasted like 100% real Belgian ones. There aren't (m)any places that can pull that off.

 

Nah, Denver Beer Co taking gold in wood aged beer takes the cake. Also, ISO: mango blue moon.

 

Went to the Saturday afternoon and my favorites were: Pfriem Family Pilsner and Neshaminy Creek Vienna and Oktoberfest. I stuck to lagers this year and I feel like I had quite few really good Helles as well.

 

I meant it was an upset because it's the first time f2b didn't finish first in a major comp. it was three for three in the gabf with gold's prior to this year.

 

Where can I get two 12 bottle shippers in town?

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...r-where-to-get-a-shipper.454788/#post-5044528

 

Interesting and fun time at GABF this year. I ended up not hitting as many breweries as I wanted to, missed out on some that I really wanted, and ultimately was bummed at 3:45PM when they immediately shut down all the taps. I feel like they should change the cutoff to 3:55 or 4:00PM. After all, if the session is 12-4 - 90% of the people are heading for the doors at 3:45.

Also they stopped letting people get in line for T-shirts at the same time. Should be open later, just this one man's opinion.

We waited in line a long time at Jester King, because of where the Bookstore was, it was hard to have a proper line there. Beers were OK but eclipsed by others. Highlights include Lost Abbey sour beers, Weldwerks, Black Project. And yes I did hit some CO places because some of the beers are hard to get your hands on.

IMO Oxcart from black project was the best Spontaneous beer I had, I thought Jester King's wasn't very good.

Barrel Aged Mexican Achromatic was the best BA Imperial Stout that I had.

DDH Juicy Bits probably the best IPA that I tried, although we missed out on a lot of the IPAs this year.

Beachwood's sours were surpising, and the Toolbox Abricot was very nice.

 

That BA Mexican Achromatic was incredible. One of the best beers I had all weekend in Denver.

The First Draft/Tavour Bottlefest left a bit to be desired. The space to wait in for your time was crowding the kitchen pass of the restaurant, and each session ran past its posted time by 10-15 minutes. Turns out it's pretty hard to have 30 people vacate immediately and bring up 30 more people without running over.
The posted bottle list was not a guarantee of what you could drink. The Tavour people had bottles in front of them on tables with token costs for each, and other bottles behind them in ice chests. The token costs seemed all over the place to me, with HF Anna costing 1 token, and Alchemist cans costing 2. Casey Oak Theory for 3. Exactly 1 bottle of Fou Foune was opened within 2 sessions and got immediately bumrushed and emptied in 30 seconds by 5 people.
People had to cajole the Tavour folks to open bottles sitting behind the tables, with occasionally being told they were just not going to be opened. The whole thing just felt haphazard and rushed, having to go downstairs and get back in line every time if you had multiple sessions. Half the time people were standing around not really wanting any of the available bottles.
Hopefully they tighten things up next year. I think just a simple disclaimer saying no bottles are guaranteed would be nice, but that would probably turn a lot of people off from going.

 

i had a similar reaction my biggest problem was my sesion was all sours. I had to go up and force them to open something other then a sour. The token price were allover the place. in my sesion lots of standing around as peaple waited for rarer beers. The alchmest stuff being 2 or 3 token was odd. Need to be tighned up

 

On the topic of beer/food pairings, the Mercantile Invitational Event was terrific. The food, beers, and pairings were excellent.
That's most definitely on my rotation for next year. In fact, I think my rotation for this year should be worth sticking to in the future.
Wed: Mercantile, Thurs: B&B Brunch, GABF1 + Sam's #3, Fri: Rare + Follow-up, Sat: GABF2.
WTF might be back in the cards if the week doesn't like up with Zwanze again.

 

My biggest takeaway from this weekend: Just like they say don't go grocery shopping on an empty stomach, don't go beer shopping during GABF week after drinking a couple beers. I came home with a ton of great beer though....just a much lighter wallet than intended.

Highlights of the weekend for me were Firestone Walker's Parabajava, Fremont's BBA Dark Star and Field to Ferment, Cannonball Creek's Featherweight Pale Ale, Melvins IPA and Asterisk, Bierstadt's Slow Pour Pils and Beryl's Logan's Barrel Reserve. So many other great beers, but those were my standouts. Not all enjoyed at the Fest, but also around town.

Speaking of around town, finally made it to First Draft. Liked the concept on paper, loved it even more in reality. Thought it was so cool being able to select how much/little of any one beer I wanted at any given time. And the selection was great, which I definitely realize was influenced by it being GABF week. But Parabajava, Juicy Bits, Asterisk, etc. at my beckon was a treat.

Biggest letdown: The Rackhouse. The food I ordered was either not impressive or 86'ed. Expensive to boot (wouldn't be an issue if I liked it though). Also, Freshcraft was insanely packed when I tried to go.

 

I followed my regular pattern this year and it worked out fine. Friday evening got there about 20 minutes after it opened (we actually got there earlier than anticipated) and waited about 10-15 minutes; first beer less than a half hour after we arrived via Uber.

Saturday, got there 30-35 minutes after it opened, walked right in - no waiting - first beer was tried within 10 minutes of exiting our Uber.

By the way, I left both sessions early and still tasted 150 beers over the two sessions, waiting in no line more than 7-10 minutes.

 

Getting in early really doesn't benefit you that much. Especially on Thursday when there's is little to no risk of anything being out. Saturday...different story.
The real benefit is to (hopefully) bypass a couple of the longer lines you know will form. New Glarus, Funky Buddha, Black Project, etc.
Most of the rare pours are on a schedule. Not all of them, but most of the ones I saw weren't going on until after 7:30pm. Hourly or half-hourly tappings are pretty typical.
Both days we went I think we bailed inside 3 hours. That's right around the time where all of those beers start to go bonkers in your gut.

 

Bosque Brewing had 2 standout IPAs, especially the Acequia Wet Hop IPA but the Scale Tipper IPA was also fantastic.

 

Agree with Rackhouse . The food blows.

 

We had a few dissapointments in the food area too. The Buckhorn Exchange was a letdown, especially considering the prices. The atmosphere was great with the game animals and guns on display but the food was only ok and very pricey.

The Prime Rib at the Bull and Bush was good but not as good as last year. The beer was as good as ever. The staff was very friendly and one of the Brewers even remembered us from last year.

The Pizza at Hops and Pie was as good as advertised even though they were swamped.

The Pizza at Back Country in Boulder was also very good and their beer list is very impressive.

 

The food at Rackhouse has been hit & miss. I love the mac & cheese and duck fat fries. The other items have ranged from really good to "never again." It also feels like their menu is still in flux. I'm still hopeful they'll get back to where they were in the old location...only with better service and parking. They have both of those things covered, so now we just need the menu to get squared away,

 

I'll be visiting town this weekend, wonder if there's anything still left over around town? Probably not.

 

Probably not much, I'll PM you with some places to check. However we still have some of the best distro in the country, so you shouldn't be leaving empty-handed.

 

Yeah, my accountant (wife) hates it.

 

Yup

Yup

Biggest let-down?
Black Project. Took FOREVER to pour (probably on purpose to slow down the line as they probably only had so much, after all their 100% spontaneous ales.) By the time I got a pour, about 50% of everyone behind me in line had already entered GABF.

2nd Biggest let-down?
Black Project. Went to the bottle release on Sunday (1st ever bottle release) and instead of 1-bottle per person per trip through the line, they just gave people what they wanted even if they had extra tickets. That meant if you were 10th in line, there were like 40-50+ bottles sold before you even got to through the first time, which is what their policy is meant to prevent.

And I love Black Project, Sarah & James are the best, but darn it if I don't get the wrong end of the stick every time I try to get some of their beer.

But I digress.

I need to get up to WeldWerks more.

 

Glad to hear you enjoyed both BAMA and DDH Juicy Bits. We were extremely proud of both those beers (might be the 2 best we have produced so far) so it was pretty exciting pouring them at GABF. Glad others enjoyed them as well!

 

Mile High has a lot of gabf stuff, still. Maybe not precious whale crap, but they are far from out. Please leave the four packs of BBQ alone, though.

 

Another big fly under the radar beer, River North's BA Nightmare Fuel, 'tis gooood.

 

We went to Black Project about 90 minutes after GABF open and they were only out of one beer (cherry oxcart). I was surprised to see an ever-present line though. I've enjoyed all the beers I've had from them.

That makes no sense. Please let them know so they can correct the issues in the future. Most breweries welcome feedback.

 

Best kept secret at GABF = December 6th.

 

So many good beers. I swear that 4 hours feels like 30 minutes to me.
My two favorite ipas from the fest were DDH Juicy bits and Superpower. It's Great living in Colorado.

 

That was the first thing I did.... no response.

 

I agree their beer is great and great people. Just felt like it took forever because it was my first stop and other booths had pitchers ready and they were pouring their beer as slow as lambic, I get it though, probably my mistake going there first.