GABF

Comrade Brewing Company | Superpower IPA Wins Big at GABF

October 16, 2019 | Scott Grossman

Denver’s Comrade Brewing Company showed its true superpower at this year’s Great American Beer Festival: winning medals. Comrade took home golds for SuperPower IPA and More Dodge Less RAM and was also named Small Brewing Company of the Year.

Superpower IPA beat out 130 other entries to win the American-Style Strong Pale Ale category to prove why it has been a taproom staple since Comrade opened five years ago. Read More

Beer Topics Craft Beer News GABF

One Colorado Brewery Continues to Medal at Every GABF Since Opening

October 10, 2019 | Tristan Chan

When we speak about the 1990’s Chicago Bulls, John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins from the mid 60’s through 70’s, the 1950’s Yankees with Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra, or more contemporary examples like Geno Auriemma’s UConn Women’s Basketball teams from the mid 90’s to today, and from 2001 to today, the New England Patriots, we’re talking about iconic programs that have achieved greatness for such a sustained period of time and consistency, that they transcend normal recognition. They become spoken about in rarified air, as dynasties.

Features GABF Midwest

2019 Great American Beer Festival | Brink Brewing’s Incredible Success

October 10, 2019 | David Nilsen

Brink Brewing in the College Hill neighborhood of northern Cincinnati just opened in 2017, but they already have seven medals and awards from the Great American Beer Festival. In fact, they’ve never failed to medal in the three GABFs since their founding. Last week they brought home gold medals for their Hold the Reins English Mild and Moozie Milk Stout, as well as top honors for Very Small Brewing Company of the Year, which is awarded to a brewery producing fewer than 1,000 barrels of beer annually.

Beer Topics GABF

Exploring the Versatility of Caskmates Collaborations at GABF

October 9, 2019 | Mathew Powers

For the second year, Jameson Whiskey sponsored and participated in the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). Twenty-two brewing partners used Jameson Irish Whiskey barrels to age beer and then pour the finished product for fans in the energetic, music-filled Caskmates Barrel Aged Beer Garden. For this Irish (craft beer loving) American writer, it was my (pleasurable) task to drink as many of the 45-plus creations and provide my feedback.

Craft Beer News GABF

2019 Great American Beer Fest | Non-Alcoholic Beers Enter the Scene

October 9, 2019 | Casey Street

Non-alcoholic beers were an emerging category of beer at the 2019 Great American Beer Festival with several breweries participating in both the festival and the competition. While they played a small part in the overall event, their addition to the competition this year may be a harbinger of things to come if this trends continue in the right direction.

Beer Events Beer Topics Features

2019 Great American Beer Festival | Obscure & Historical Beer Styles

October 8, 2019 | David Nilsen

Pastry stouts, hazy IPAs and rare sours tend to command most of the buzz at the Great American Beer Festival; the lines at brewery booths pouring those beers last week in Denver certainly attested to that. However, I chose a different tasting route for my festival experience. As I wandered the festival floor, I didn’t so much choose “the road less traveled” as much as an overgrown path forgotten by time: I wanted to taste as many obscure, historical beer styles as I could.

GABF offers a wonderful educational opportunity for anyone who wants to taste styles largely lost to history. Want to know what a gruit tastes like? Want to compare multiple export stouts or Dortmunder lagers beside each other? You’ll never have a better chance to do it than at GABF.
Read More

Beer Topics GABF

Best Beer Names from the 2019 Great American Beer Festival

October 8, 2019 | Casey Street 1

Another Great American Beer Festival, another 4,000 beers in the books. Somehow breweries have yet to run out of beer puns for their beer names, so we searched high and low throughout the 2019 GABF to find the wittiest titles or otherwise amazing names. Though some were award winners and others were poured on the festival floor, all are hilarious.

Here are the best beer puns and names from GABF 2019.

Features GABF Mountain

Colorado Breweries Shine Bright at 2019 GABF Awards Ceremony

October 7, 2019 | Karen Mills

This has been another great year for the home state of the Great American Beer Festival. Colorado breweries took home a whopping 40 medals and two brewery/brewer of the year awards at this year’s GABF. Of the 40 medals, 13 of them were gold medals, 21 silver and six bronze. Without further ado, let’s deep dive into this some of this year’s winners.

Craft Beer News GABF Midwest

Chicago takes hazy gold once again at GABF, 9 other medals

October 5, 2019 | Mike Zoller

Chicago is once again home to Great American Beer Festival’s gold medal-winning Hazy IPA after Old Irving Brewing Co. took home top honors for Beezer. Last year, the first year with the Hazy IPA category, Alarmist won the inaugural gold for Le Jus. (And, in 2017, Hailstorm won for its Prairie Madness IPA which was the most-entered category by breweries that year.)

Beer Events Beer Topics GABF

2019 GABF Awards Results | Who Won Big at This Year’s Competition

October 5, 2019 | Tristan Chan

The 2019 Great American Beer Festival has crowned their newest batch of champions and standouts. This year, the competition portion of GABF saw 9,497 entries from 2,295 breweries across … Read More

Beer Topics Features GABF

The PorchCast Ep 63 | Ken Grossman – Sierra Nevada Brewing

October 4, 2019 | Tristan Chan

In episode 63 of the PorchCast, the whole squad sat down with Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing, at the dawn of the Great American Beer Festival to talk about their 40th Anniversary.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Beer Events Beer Topics GABF

2019 Great American Beer Fest | Standouts and Recap from Day One

October 4, 2019 | Mike Zoller

As bagpipers marched into the Colorado Convention Center Thursday evening to officially usher in the 38th annual Great American Beer Festival the PorchDrinking team was feverishly sampling as many beers as possible, to discover hidden gems and standouts from night one.

Beer Showcases Beer Topics GABF

Great Divide Brewing Company | Mexican Chocolate Yeti

October 4, 2019 | Seth Garland

Fans of Denver staple and craft beer OG Yeti from Great Divide already know the importance of starting with a quality base beer before throwing a bunch of variants out into the saturated market. With Yeti–one of the most recognizably branded beers in the country–there’s no shortage of variants, ranging from horchata and chai to the beloved barrel-aged chocolate and vanilla Stouts that have made their way onto store shelves at different points in time.

With so many solid variants available in stores, and even more available at Great Divide’s taphouse and RiNo Barrel Bar, how do you pick just one to review? And with so many other beers to choose from in the craft beer market at-large, how does a brewery stay relevant?

GABF Pop Culture The Ultimate 6er

Ultimate 6er | ‘Lover’ Comes to Great American Beer Festival

October 3, 2019 | Danielle Engel

The Great American Beer Fest is an awe-inspiring menagerie of beer. Good beer, weird beers, surprising styles, and not nearly enough time to give them all a thoughtful pause. It can be overwhelming to know where to start, so we over at PorchDrinking have several different routes that we have planned out to make it easier for those who love specific styles. There isn’t really a wrong way to do GABF (except not drinking water, please drink water) so here is a way to dive in that is more musically inclined.

Beer Events Beer Topics GABF

PorchDrinking’s 2019 Great American Beer Festival Survival Guide

October 2, 2019 | Mathew Powers

The Great American Beer Festival began in 1982 with 24 breweries serving 47 beers to fans for a single, five-hour session. Today, the number of external events exceed the beers poured at that first fest, and the convention hall will allow patrons to select from more than 3,500 beers. What do you drink? Where do you go? How can one possibly navigate such a colossal beer experience? We at PorchDrinking.com have tried to make the process simpler, writing more than a dozen stories on the event. And, to further simplify it, we have now put all those stories in one location.

First a few important notes on this year’s festival:

A few tickets still remain for Thursday Night and Saturday Night sessions. Tickets available here.
This year’s festival format returns to booths being arranged alphabetically by region.
Attendees of ALL sessions will receive glass cups instead of plastic.
Thursday Night, Friday Night and Saturday Night Sessions begin at 5:30, Saturday’s Day Session begins at Noon. For first time attendees, we recommend arriving at least an hour and a half before your session to wait in line.
Don’t forget to check out other sections for hidden gem beers. The Brewers Guild section has guild representatives from several states that bring beers from breweries that aren’t otherwise pouring on the festival floor.
The Heavy Medal section has beers pouring from past GABF medal winners.
There’s a Fresh Hop booth with all fresh/wet-hopped beers.
Several breweries will have special timed releases that aren’t otherwise listed on the pour list. Modern Times Beer, for example, will have a different special release each day of the fest.

Enjoy GABF. Enjoy Beer. Enjoy Craft in all it glory. And here are more tools to help you enjoy the week.

Beer Events Beer Topics GABF

2019 GABF Guided Routes | Fruit-Forward Beers to Try at GABF

October 1, 2019 | Karen Mills

This was made possible by Molly’s Spirits, your go-to stop for some of the best local and national beer drops throughout GABF week and beyond!

For the past two months, … Read More

Beer Events Beer Topics GABF

2019 GABF Guided Routes | Sour & Wild Beers to Try at GABF

October 1, 2019 | Tristan Chan

This was made possible by Molly’s Spirits, your go-to stop for some of the best local and national beer drops throughout GABF week and beyond!

For the past two months, our staff has been researching styles for each beer pouring at the Great American Beer Festival. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through that list of beers to bring you a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.

Beer Events Beer Topics GABF