GABF Part 3: The best (and worst) of the fest!

Saturday at GABF is truly a marathon, and when we woke up the next day, any thoughts of heading out to Boulder were shot.  My liver was pleading with me to give it a break, and so I did.

The day, as mentioned in the title, had the biggest ups and downs of the whole festival.  On one hand, the whole Saturday evening session was a disaster, and would have been a total waste if it hadn’t given me the chance to meet up with my college roommate Rosie and her friend Josh.  On the other hand, Falling Rock on Saturday night was so much fun that I’m not sure it can be topped.  But before diving into all this, let me start at the beginning.

We didn’t have time on Saturday to bounce around to one or two local beer destinations before the actual GABF session, since Saturday is the only day with an afternoon session, and it’s a pretty important one at that.  The Saturday afternoon session is for American Homebrewers Association/Brewers Association members only, though in reality this means that it’s open to anyone willing to pay the extra $35 for a membership.  It is also the session in which the awards are announced, followed by a period in which all the festival goers scramble around trying to drink the award winning beers.

However, I did have one pre-session event to attend, and that was the second meeting of the Pink Boots Society.  This is a membership organization for female brewers that had its first meeting at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego, earlier this year.  As a blogger/”beer educator”, I’m eligible to join as a non-voting member, but this year, with my new brewing job and potential voting member status ahead of me, I felt like it was especially important for me to attend.  In the last meeting, members discussed and voted upon criteria for membership, “who” the pink boots are.  In this meeting, we discussed and voted upon goals of the organization, essentially “what” the pink boots are all about.  Teri Fahrendorf will soon have the official wording of these goals up at the Pink Boots site, but I took down the basic idea of each of the goals that the group decided upon:

• To encourage women to become beer drinkers
• To encourage women to become homebrewer
• To encourage women to become beer judges
• To encourage women to become brewing professionals
• To encourage women to advance their brewing careers and education
• To promote women in brewing to the media

One of the more exciting moments was meeting the two international female brewmasters who were present.  One was from a brewery in Japan, located near Tokyo Disney, which I swear she said was named Harvest Moon, though I can’t find it online, so I’m wondering if they don’t have an English language webpage.  The other was from Gordon Biersch Taiwan.  Who knew GB had made it to Taiwan!

I also got a chance to talk to the other women at my table, and to hear about their breweries, which was a lot of fun.  These included Lori Wince, at Weasel Boy Brewing in Zanesville, OH, and Barbara Gerovac at Red Car Brewing in Torrance, CA, right near my hometown!  On the beer education side, we had Cinzia Wallace and Sue Smith-Troy from Left Hand Brewing in Longmont, CO, who are the founders of the Ales for Females beer appreciation club, and my friend Nicole Erny from The Trappist in Oakland, CA, and me.

It sounds like there are a lot of good Pink Boots plans in the works, so I encourage other female brewing industry professionals or beer educators to check out one of the future meetings.  The tentative plan is to hold meetings twice each year, once at the Craft Brewers Convention and once at the Great American Beer Festival.

Our friend Brian Cooper, me, Melissa, and Allie at the Saturday night session

Once the meeting was over, I had to quickly scoot back to Convention Center to get in line for the afternoon session.  We got inside pretty quickly and then realized: we had already gone to just every booth we knew we wanted to visit.  What were we going to do now?  We decided it was time to try the exhaustive approach.  We may have had approximately 120 beers from about 70 breweries, but this meant we had about 1930 beers left to try and about 360 booths left to visit.  We had a lot of work ahead of us.  So, we decided to take the exhaustive approach, and to start in the Midwest, where we knew fewer of the breweries, and just go up and down the aisles trying at least one beer from each booth we hadn’t already visited.  This meant our afternoon was full of surprises, some good, some not-so-good.

One of the most shocking positive surprises for me is that I liked the Pit Bull Malt Liquor from Pig’s Eye Brewing.  I never would have tried this of my own free will, but as we swept by the Pig’s Eye booth, Allie got a taster of it and immediately made me try it.  Now, I’m not sure in what context I’m every going to need a 24 oz can of something that is 10.2% ABV (that might put me out for a week), but if I did, and if were a hot day on which an imperial stout/Belgian strong dark/old ale/barleywine would seem inappropriate, then I might reach for this.

Another surprise was the Two Brothers Cane & Ebel.  I guess I should have expected to like it, since it is a rye beer, and I’m partial to those, but it sounded so busy.  It’s an “India Red Rye” brewed with Simcoe and Summit hops and Thai palm sugar.  Whatever it was, it was delicious.

Other favorites were the intense barrel aged brews at Bull & Bush, particularly the Royal Oil and the 37^th Suitcase, and the Saison with roasted squash from Trinity Brewing Company.

It’s almost unbelievable how many beers we got through that afternoon, but since the three of us were taking only a few sips a piece from each one ounce pour, we were still feeling pretty good when 4:00 rolled around.  In the end, we tried 110 beers in the Saturday afternoon session and 210 beers from 143 breweries across all four sessions.  Our Saturday afternoon list and our full list appear at the end of this post.

As we were herded out into the icy rain between sessions, we knew we needed to eat, but weren’t sure where to go.  Our friend Alan suggested Ted’s, which does burgers and ribs, and specializes in bison meat.  This won out over a rival suggestion of sushi from Sean, which normally I would jump at, but with my belly full of beer and temperatures lower than I’d experienced since moving out to California, a plate full of piping hot meat sounded just right.  So, Allie, Melissa, Alan, Jay, Sean, and I hurried on over to Ted’s Montana Grill, looking sorry for the folks already shivering in line outside the Convention Center for the Saturday evening session.  I got a bison burger with cheddar, grilled onions and mushrooms, and avocado, and it was fantastic.  We stayed a little longer than we probably should have, but I wasn’t eager to head back.  I didn’t want to wait outside in the cold, I had drunk about as much beer as I could handle, and I wasn’t eager to see what kind of crowds would pack the Saturday night session, which is somewhat notorious for its fratboy atmosphere.

Turns out, I was right on the money with all three of my worries.  Even though the doors opened at 5:30 for the evening session, when I showed up at 6:10, there was not only still a line, but I had to go ¾ of the way around the building to get to the back of it.  I almost gave up and went home.  After waiting 40 minutes to get in, I realized what a zoo it was.  There must have been twice as many people as there were at the Saturday afternoon session, and at least one and a half times as many people as there were at the Thursday and Friday sessions.  I was hard to move, hard to talk, and hard to get beer.  The crowd was decidedly less geeky and more eager to drink to get drunk than at the previous sessions.  The number of cheers that went up over dropped glasses was enough to make someone lose his or her mind.  And though I’m sure large portions of the crowd didn’t notice, many of the good beers had run out, and even the t-shirt shop was running low.

The one bright spot in all of this was that my friends Rosie and Josh were there, and we got to take them around and play tour guide, since this was the only session for which they had been able to get tickets.  We tried to take them to the good booths so that they didn’t have to waste their time fighting the crowds for mediocre stuff.  Unfortunately, half the time ended up being wasted anyway since many of our favorites had kicked already.  With regrets to Rose & Josh, I bailed around 8:15, even though the session wouldn’t end until 10:00, like the others.  The crowd was making me anxious and I only had three or four tastes of beer anyway, since I didn’t feel like I could stomach any more beer on top of the mash of bison and beer my stomach was already dealing with.

After going home and changing (my clothes never got beer spilled on them until this last session full of people to whom balance had become a foreign concept), and resting a bit, it was off to Falling Rock.  We wavered and almost didn’t go, since we were full and it was an awfully cold and rainy walk over there, but we knew we didn’t want to miss it, and we were right.

When we got there, it was as packed as ever and I had to look all the tables up and down before I found one with a beer menu.  When I asked to borrow it, its owners were hesitant to let it go, informing me it was the only one in the house.  I had to look it over while standing at the end of their table, which made me feel like an intruder, but which got the job done.  I wanted to get something Belgian and special to share with our friends downstairs, particularly with Sean as a ‘Thank You’ for helping me meet the person who’s now my soon-to-be employer.  We got a bottle of Gouden Carolus D’Or, which promptly started foaming over and almost doused the nice people at the bar whose shoulders we had to reach over to pick it up.  While juggling of the bottle, the four glasses, the credit card, the wallet, the purse, all while trying not to get jostled out of my spot and not to spill on anyone, I almost lost it.  I hate crowds and do as much as I can to avoid them, and this was about to make me lose my mind.  Luckily, once we scurried downstairs, it was only half as bad.

We ended up running into the whole group from the brewery I’ll soon be joining.  While I was a bit nervous at first, thinking “What do you do when you run into your boss after having tasted 110 beers and are diving into an 11% ABV Belgian?”  This was never an issue I faced at my prior job, to say the least.  After deciding not to stress, the answer I went with was “Well, give him a glass of it, already.”  This also helped alleviate the me-carrying-too-many-things problem, and things just went uphill from there.  The whole crew was so friendly and funny that I couldn’t stop thinking about how lucky I was, to be joining a place that had not only taken home some serious hardware in the competition, but who, as their lead brewer put it in a moment of enthusiasm that seems to be his default attitude in life, “If there were a competition on friendship, we’d win!”  He then picked up his boss, the brewmaster, in a big bear hug.  Though this sounds super-cheesy, but I have to say I believe he’s right, I probably laughed harder and longer that night than in the whole prior month combined.  I was worried at first with how I’d stand with the group, not having actually started my new job yet, but no only did they set me at ease, but Allie and Melissa felt completely included as well.  The brewmaster, who had hired me, not only remembered that I had a sister and where she had gone to college, but he had a whole story for her about how he had mentioned this to the brewery owners, one of whom had pulled his leg, going on and on about what a terrible school it was, only to end with, “Actually, I’m just kidding.  I went there too.”  We ended the night at the Cruise Room, which I feared was going to the thing that pushed us over the edge.  We had been drinking the New Belgium sour beers (La Folie for me) after the Gouden Carolus, and piling hard liquor on top of that sounded like a very bad idea.  Luckily, it took us a while to get settled in, and since their specialty at the Cruise Room is fresh pressed juices, they didn’t make the drinks too strong, so that the alcohol wouldn’t overwhelm the juice.  We had one each before we decided we needed to call it a night and head home.

In all, the whole week, but especially that last night, was an amazing experience.  We can’t wait to come back and do it again.  And the only things I’d change in retrospect are;

(1)   I wouldn’t go to the Saturday evening session at all

(2)   I’d get a car and drive out to the outlying breweries on Friday before the evening session.

So, until next year, here’s to Denver and GABF!

Our list of Saturday afternoon tastes:

Airdale	Homecoming Spiced Porter
Alpine	Irish Red
Piece	Dysfunctional Strong American Pale Ale
Pig’s Eye	Pit Bull Malt Liquor
Piece	Dark Bier
Jolly Pumpkin	Bam Noir Dark Farmhouse Ale
Sapient	Triple
Founder’s	Breakfast Stout
Thirsty Dog	Maibock
Thirsty Dog	12 Days of Christmas Spiced Ale
Titletown	Baltic Porter
Titletown	Johnny Blood Red
Thirsty Dog	Siberian Nights Imperial Stout
Turoni’s	Old Charter Bourbon Barrel Porter
Two Brothers	Cane & Ebel India Red Rye
Weasel Boy	Scottish
Lakefront	New Grist Sorghum & Rice Beer
Wasatch	Autumn Bock
Hopping Frog	Oatmeal Stout
The Herkimer Pub	Gose
Harrison’s	Butterscotch
Snake River Lander	Red Canyon Red
Grumpy Troll	Summer Stout
Grumpy Troll	Flander’s Ned Ale
Grumpy Troll	Amnesia Baltic Porter
Great Dane	Old Scratch Barleywine ‘99
Great Dane	Rambling Vine Wheat Wine
Great Dane	IPA
Flossmoor	Hoppy Little O Belgian IPA
Flossmoor	Collaborative Evila Dark Belgian
Smuggler’s Brewpub	Rocky Mountain Rye
Elevator Brewing	Burning Bush Smoked Maerzen
The Detroit Beer Co	Amber Dwarf
Dark Horse	Apple Ale (Cider with ale yeast)
Dark Horse	Pumpkin Spice Ale
Copper Canyon	“10″ Strong Ale
Copper Canyon	Deveil’s Peak IPA
Cold Spring	Honey Almond Weisse
Capital Brewing	Autumnal Fire Doppelbock
Central Waters	Kosmyk Charlie’s Y2K Catastrophe Ale (Barleywine)
Central Waters	Satin Stolstice Imperial Stout
Brugge	Black Ale
Brugge	Diamond Kings of Heaven
Boulevard	Saison
Boulevard	Saison Brett
Augusta	Spicy Blonde with lemongrass & ginger
Barley Island	Bourbon Barrel Stout
Big Rock Chophouse	Imperial Stout
Atwater	Vanilla Java Porter
Atwater	Voodoo Vater
Arcadia	CocoLoco Stout
Corner Brewery	Espresso Cove
Corner Brewery	Jackhammer Old Ale
Arbor Brewing	Milestone Porter
America’s Brewing Company	Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
America’s Brewing Company	Oompah Loompa Chocolate Beer
75th Street Brrewery	Five Point Palm Exploding Hop Technique Bourbon Barrel IPA
Dog Fish Head	World Wide Stout
Iron Hill	Saison du Hill
Iron Hill	Belgian IPA
Left Hand	Sawtooth ESB
Left Hand	Milk Stout
Left Hand	Rye
McClellan’s	Imperiale Ale Strong American Pale Ale
Mountain Sun	Stoked Oak Bourbon Barrel Oatmeal Stout
Pug Ryan	Scottish Ale
Pagoasa	Coconut Porter
Phantom Canyon	Oktoberfest
Pug Ryan	Pilsner
Pump House	Cherry Bomb Saison
Red Fish	Angry Monk Dubbel
Rocky Mountain	Brunette
Redstone	Blackberry Mead
New Belgium	Triple
New Belgium	Grand Cru
Rockyard	Redhawk Ale
San Luis Valley	Oatmeal Stout
Sandlot	Goat Rancher Bock
Silverton	Red Mountain Beer
Silverton	Barely Legal Barleywine
Silverton	Ice Pick IPA
Smuggler’s	Saison
Smuggler’s	Sky Hop IPA
Smuggler’s	10:13 Oatmeal Stout
Snake River	Dortmunder
Snake River	Custer’s Last Ale
Snake River	Zonker Stout
Snake River Lander	Berliner Weisse
Steamworks	Backside Stout
Suds Brothers	Robust Porter
Trinity	Saison with Roasted Squash
Trinity	Flo IPA
Twisted Pine	Espresso Stout
Twisted Pine	Oaked Whiskey Red
Uinta	King’s Peak Porter
Uinta	Cutthroat Pale Ale
Squatters	Altbier
Wasatch	Devastator Doppelbock
Wolf Rock	Stout
Bull & Bush	Royal Oil Whiskey Barrel English Barleywine
Bull & Bush	37th Suitcase Barrel Saison
Lang Creek	IPA
Kannah Creek	Pigasus Porter
Kannah Creek	Broken Oar IPA
Hoppers	Pilsner
Hoppers	Mild
Grand Teton	Bitch Creek ESB
Golden City	Honey Saison
Golden City	Gose
Odells	Porter

Out overall list of beers tasted:

BREWERY	BEER
23rd Street	Irish Red
75th Street Brrewery	Five Point Palm Exploding Hop Technique Bourbon Barrel IPA
Adirondack	Spiced Ale
Airdale	Homecoming Spiced Porter
Allagash	Curieux
Alpine	Irish Red
Alpine	Pure Hoppiness
America’s Brewing Company	Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
America’s Brewing Company	Oompah Loompa Chocolate Beer
Arbor Brewing	Milestone Porter
Arcadia	CocoLoco Stout
Atwater	Vanilla Java Porter
Atwater	Voodoo Vater
Augusta	Spicy Blonde with lemongrass & ginger
Avery	Ale to the Chief
Barley Brothers	Blueberry Vanilla Wheat
Barley Brothers	Double Espresso Stout
Barley Island	Bourbon Barrel Stout
Baron	Doppelbock
Barrio Brewery	Taylor Jayne’s Raspberry
Big Rock Chophouse	Imperial Stout
Blind Tiger	Oktoberfest
Blue Moon	Peanut Butter Ale
Blue Point	Hoptical Illusion
Bosco’s Ray’s	Honey Rye
Boulevard	Saison
Boulevard	Saison Brett
Bridgeport	Amber Ale
Bridgeport	Ebeneezer Ale
Bridgeport	Fresh Hop Ale
Brooklyn Brewery	Chocolate Stout
Brooklyn Brewery	Grand Cru
Brugge	Black Ale
Brugge	Diamond Kings of Heaven
Bull & Bush	37th Suitcase Barrel Saison
Bull & Bush	Royal Oil Whiskey Barrel English Barleywine
Cambridge Brewing Company	Arquebus Summer Barleywine
Cambridge Brewing Company	Cerise Cassee
Cambridge Brewing Company	Heather Ale
Capital Brewing	Autumnal Fire Doppelbock
Central Waters	Kosmyk Charlie’s Y2K Catastrophe Ale (Barleywine)
Central Waters	Satin Stolstice Imperial Stout
Chama	March Hare IPA
Chama	Sleeping Dog Oatmeal Stout
Chama	Smoke Beer
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Cherry Caudill
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Cilantro Lime
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Hawaiian Honey
Chicago Brewery of Las Vegas	Peach Saison
Clipper City	Small Craft Warning Pilsner Bock
Cold Spring	Honey Almond Weisse
Copper Canyon	“10″ Strong Ale
Copper Canyon	Deveil’s Peak IPA
Corner Brewery	Espresso Cove
Corner Brewery	Jackhammer Old Ale
Cumberland Brewery	Mr. Banana Grabber Belgian IPA
Dark Horse	Apple Ale (Cider with ale yeast)
Dark Horse	Pumpkin Spice Ale
Dock Street	Baltic Maple
Dock Street	Bubbly Wit
Dock Street	Espresso Stout
Dock Street	Rye IPA
Dock Street	Sorghum
DOG Brewing	Black Dog
DOG Brewing	Blueberry
Dog Fish Head	World Wide Stout
Dogfish Head	120 Minute Imperial IPA
Dogfish Head	Red & White
Dogfish Head	Sahtea
Dogfish Head	Theobroma
Duck Rabbit	Wee Heavy
Elevator Brewing	Burning Bush Smoked Maerzen
Elysian	After The Supernova Imperial Stout
Fifty-Fifty Brewing	Dark Tripel
Firestone-Walker	Big Opal
Firestone-Walker	Parabola
Flossmoor	Collaborative Evila Dark Belgian
Flossmoor	Hoppy Little O Belgian IPA
Founder’s	Breakfast Stout
Fredericksburg	Honey Creme Ale
Golden City	Gose
Golden City	Honey Saison
Goose Island	Debbie’s Little Helper Imperial Red
Goose Island	Juliet (Rye in cabernet barrel)
Goose Island	Matilda
Grand Teton	Bitch Creek ESB
Grand Teton	Black Cauldron Imperial Stout
Great Dane	IPA
Great Dane	Old Scratch Barleywine ‘99
Great Dane	Rambling Vine Wheat Wine
Great Divide	Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout
Great Divide	Hercules Double IPA
GreenFlash	Stout
Grumpy Troll	Amnesia Baltic Porter
Grumpy Troll	Flander’s Ned Ale
Grumpy Troll	Summer Stout
Hale’s Ales	Barleywine
Hale’s Ales	Coconut Porter
Hale’s Ales	Wee Heavy in Brandy Barrels
Harrison’s	Butterscotch
Hoppers	Mild
Hoppers	Pilsner
Hopping Frog	Double IPA
Hopworks Urban Brewery	Velvet ESB
Iron Hill	Belgian IPA
Iron Hill	Saison du Hill
Jolly Pumpkin	Bam Noir Dark Farmhouse Ale
Jolly Pumpkin	Luciernaga Saison
Jolly Pumpkin	Oro de Calabaza
Kannah Creek	Broken Oar IPA
Kannah Creek	Pigasus Porter
Lakefront	New Grist Sorghum & Rice Beer
Lang Creek	IPA
Lawson’s Finest Liquids	Maple Nipple (Maple Triple)
Left Hand	Milk Stout
Left Hand	Rye
Left Hand	Sawtooth ESB
Lost Abbey	Brandy Barrel Angel’s Share
Lost Abbey	Isabelle Proximus
Mammoth	365 IPA
Mammoth	Doppelbock
Mateveza	Yerba Mate Ale
Maui	Coconut Porter
Maui	Coconut Rum Porter
McClellan’s	Imperiale Ale Strong American Pale Ale
Minneapolis Town Hall	Eye of the Storm Strong American Honey Ale
Minneapolis Town Hall	Mango Mama
Minneapolis Town Hall	Russian Roulette Imperial Stout
Moon River	Honey Bock
Mountain Sun	Stoked Oak Bourbon Barrel Oatmeal Stout
New Belgium	Grand Cru
New Belgium	Triple
New Glarus	Belgian Red
New Glarus	Raspberry Tart
Nodding Head	Berliner Weisse
Nodding Head	Grog
Nodding Head	Phunk
Nodding Head	Saison
Odells	Porter
Pagoasa	Coconut Porter
Pelican Brewpub	Elemental Wet Hop Ale
Phantom Canyon	Oktoberfest
Piece	Dark Bier
Piece	Dysfunctional Strong American Pale Ale
Pig’s Eye	Pit Bull Malt Liquor
Pizza Port	Imperial Stout
Pug Ryan	Pilsner
Pug Ryan	Scottish Ale
Pump House	Cherry Bomb Saison
Ram Northgate	Wheat Gruit
Ram Puyallup	Mocha Stout
Red Fish	Angry Monk Dubbel
Redstone	Apricot Nectar Mead
Redstone	Blackberry Mead
Rocky Mountain	Brunette
Rockyard	Redhawk Ale
Rogue Track Town	100 Meter India Red Ale
Rogue Track Town	Oak Aged Imperial Red
Russian River	Temptation
Sacramento	Imperial Red
Sacramento	Old Pappy Wheatwine
Sacramento	Russian Imperial Stout
San Diego	Blueberry Wheat
San Luis Valley	Oatmeal Stout
Sandlot	Goat Rancher Bock
Sandlot	Rauchbier
Sapient	Triple
Schmaltz	Albino Python
Schmaltz	Coney Island Lager
Schmaltz	Jewbelation 12
Silver City	Imperial Stout
Silverton	Barely Legal Barleywine
Silverton	Ice Pick IPA
Silverton	Red Mountain Beer
Smuggler’s	10:13 Oatmeal Stout
Smuggler’s	Saison
Smuggler’s	Sky Hop IPA
Smuggler’s Brewpub	Rocky Mountain Rye
Snake River	Custer’s Last Ale
Snake River	Dortmunder
Snake River	Zonker Stout
Snake River Lander	Berliner Weisse
Snake River Lander	Red Canyon Red
Squatters	Altbier
Steamworks	Backside Stout
Stoudts	Smooth Hoperator
Suds Brothers	Robust Porter
Summit	Oktoberfest
Surly	Coffee Brown
Surly	Furious IPA
Sweetwater	IPA
Sweetwater	Spiced Blueberry
Terrapin	Oak Aged Rye Squared
The Bruery	Autumn Maple Belgian Brown
The Bruery	Saison Rue
The Detroit Beer Co	Amber Dwarf
The Herkimer Pub	Gose
The Mash Tun	Blackberry Oatmeal Ale
Thirsty Dog	12 Days of Christmas Spiced Ale
Thirsty Dog	Maibock
Thirsty Dog	Siberian Nights Imperial Stout
Three Floyds	Dreadnought IPA
Three Floyds	Milk Stout
Titletown	Baltic Porter
Titletown	Johnny Blood Red
Tommyknocker	Coco Porter
Tommyknocker	Maple Nut Brown
Tommyknocker	Oaked Butthead
Tommyknockers	Almond Creme Soda
Trinity	Flo IPA
Trinity	Saison with Roasted Squash
Triple Rock	North Oakland Imperial IPA
Troegs	Doppelbock
Turoni’s	Old Charter Bourbon Barrel Porter
Twisted Pine	Espresso Stout
Twisted Pine	Oaked Whiskey Red
Two Brothers	Cane & Ebel India Red Rye
Uinta	Cutthroat Pale Ale
Uinta	King’s Peak Porter
Upstream Brewery	ESB
Victory	Baltic Thunder
Walking Man	Scotch Ale
Wasatch	Autumn Bock
Wasatch	Devastator Doppelbock
Weasel Boy	Scottish
Weyerbach	Imperial Pumpkin
Wolf Rock	Stout