Ultimate 6er | GABF Gold Medal Winners From Texas

Each year thousands of beer drinkers invade Denver for the Great American Beer Festival, a three day event dedicated to American craft breweries. Last year Texas walked away with 18 medals, six of which were GOLD. I caught up with each of the winners to ask how it felt to bring home the Gold in 2018.

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Brew Detroit | Cerveza Delray

October brings with it many things: changing leaves, the full onslaught of pumpkin beers and the end of outdoor parties. But my favorite part of October is, after the buzz of GABF, getting my hands on the Michigan medal winners. Luckily Michigan is a large enough brewing state that at least someone within a 30 minute drive will win something. This year, Brew Detroit snagged an International-Style Pilsner Bronze with Cerveza Delray, named after the beleaguered neighborhood just south of Mexicantown that is currently home to a lot of pollution but will soon welcome the Gordie Howe International Bridge (a welcome addition to everyone besides a company that is the literal embodiment of a bridge troll).

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The PorchCast | Ep 54 Recapping GABF Week

The PorchCast team of Tristan, Sami, and Sam (minus Hunter) gathered last week to lend their final thoughts on the 2018 Great American Beer Festival. Hear our take on how the event went overall, some of our favorite beers and breweries to emerge from the festival, some of the crazy interactions that took place with other media members during the week, and some of the best external events that happened around GABF.

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Our Favorite Puns and Beer Names From GABF 2018

With more than 4000 beers being poured at GABF last weekend from approximately 800 breweries, you probably didn’t get a chance to try them all. Even if you liked beer as much as a certain Supreme Court Justice nominee, you still probably wouldn’t have been able to try every beer on site. Regardless, we did do some extensive investigating of the beers at GABF and compiled a list of our favorite beer names.

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Chicago Craft Beer | GABF 2018

Six years ago, only about 80 breweries operated in Illinois. Now, approximately 200 breweries create heavenly ales and lagers within the Chicago metro area alone. Coinciding with that eruption of breweries has been an ever-increasing amount of recognition, including Chicago-area breweries winning Great American Beer Festival (GABF) medals and winning them in highly competitive categories.

Granted, Chicago has consistently been able to boast about its bourbon barrel aging prowess—after all, it was conceived at Goose Island during its pre-ABI days and celebrated each year at the Festival of Barrel Aged Beer. But few people outside of Chicago seemed to notice the Chicago brewing scene until recently. However, at the 2018 GABF, Chicago definitely made its mark in the Mile High City.
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Experiencing GABF Without Attending the Fest | Recapping the External Events

The Great American Beer Fest is more than just the festival held inside the confines of the Colorado Convention Center; it’s a week-long celebration of beer with events held throughout the Denver metro region. In fact, there are events occurring throughout the city even as hoards roam the GABF booths. The truth is simple: one not need purchase a ticket to the main event to experience GABF, in a manner of speaking. If by some chance you can’t obtain a ticket next year, but still want to embrace the grandeur attached to GABF, there’s a way — several ways — to achieve that goal.

For example, even though I attended the main festival, I also partook in several open-to-the-public events that proved just as fun as the big party. I also had to forgo numerous other events simply because one can only be at one place at a time. Here’s a few of those events, as well as a few I missed, which demonstrate the fun one can have even if unable to grab tickets to the main show.  Read More

Recapping 2018 GABF’s Best Beers and Emerging Breweries

America’s largest beer festival has come to a close once again. After a week fueled by obscene amounts of beer, even greater volumes of caffeine, and the occasional Illegal Pete’s burrito, we’ve emerged once again from the clutches of the Great American Beer Festival, with an entirely new perspective on the newest crop of talent in craft beer.

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Last Minute Liquor Store Luck Leads to GABF Gold for Ska Brewing

It’s a week later, and if you’re still recovering from the Great American Beer Festival and its peripheral festivities, you’re in good company. But with so many Oktoberfest events coming this weekend, there’s most certainly no rest for the wicked. On the other end of the spectrum, the breweries that went home with gold, silver and bronze hardware are still basking in the warm glow of victory.

For every medal, there’s a story, and the last-minute drama that accompanied Ska Brewing and their gold medal win for Oktoberfest in the Vienna-Style Lager category this year is definitely no exception.

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Event Recap | The 2018 GABF Jameson Caskmates Brewery Partner Program

Some argued that the Jameson Whiskey presence at GABF may at first seem almost hypocritical, given the Brewers Association stance on companies such as Anheuser Busch InBev (ABI). As a writer who full-time covers both spirits and beer, I can confidently argue that one should never confuse the two industries. As liquids, they may be similar. They are not industry siblings, however, but instead distant cousins. Moreover, whereas companies like ABI seek to confuse the marketplace, actively targeting craft beer drinkers and even paying fines for unfair practices, Jameson has never hidden from its name and the distillery consistently champions and collaborates with craft breweries, both in the U.S. and Ireland.

(For my short commentary on Jameson and the spirits industry—vs. the beer industry—see the two paragraphs at the bottom of the story.)
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GABF Awards Results | Who Won Big at the 2018 GABF

The 2018 Great American Beer Festival has crowned their newest batch of champions and standouts. This year, the competition portion of GABF saw 8,800 entries from 2,450 breweries across the country, not to mention an additional 105 Pro-Am entries. 

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2018 Great American Beer Fest: Standouts and Recap from Day One

The 37th Annual Great American Beer Festival has finally arrived and for longtime attendee’s this year’s fest likely has a different feel. Throughout the festival’s storied history and ascension to become the country’s largest beer festival, it has evolved and adapted the country’s changing landscape and this year was no different.

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2018 GABF Route Guide | Session Beers

For the past month and a half our staff has been reaching out to every brewery attending the Great American Beer Festival to try to preview what they’ll be bringing to the fest. 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.

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2018 GABF Route Guide | Hoppy Beers Route

For the past month and a half our staff has been reaching out to every brewery attending the Great American Beer Festival to try to preview what they’ll be bringing to the fest. 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.

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2018 GABF Route Guide | Funk, Sours & Wilds Route

For the past month and a half, our staff has been reaching out to every brewery attending the Great American Beer Festival to try to preview what they’ll be bringing to the fest. 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.

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2018 GABF Route Preview | Big Beers Route

For the past month and a half our staff has been reaching out to every brewery attending the Great American Beer Festival to try to preview what they’ll be bringing to the fest. 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.

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2018 Great American Beer Festival Pour List Preview

As the 2018 Great American Beer Festival approaches, I bet you’re wondering what kind of delights you can expect to sample on the festival. A hazy IPA from that Vermont brewery that doesn’t distribute in your state? A rare whale stout aged in the most fantastic of barrels? A wild, enamel-stripping sour ale full of hand-picked snozzberries? PorchDrinking has you covered!

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A Look Into the Judging of GABF Beers

Have you ever wondered what it takes for breweries to win medals at Great American Beer Festival? You might say “Easy, make great beer.” That is technically correct, but as it turns out, it takes a ton of behind the scenes organization, planning and coordination to judge all of those great beers that get entered.

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The Complete 2018 GABF Week Events Guide

For one week a year, Denver and the surrounding metro area turn upside down for the Great American Beer Festival. While the festival floor is a great place to sample thousands of beers from all across, the events happening outside of the festival have become equally as impressive and formidable. From tap take-overs to beer dinners, special release to actual full-blown separate beer festivals all together have broken off of GABF. So, to help provide some perspective and frothy guidance, we have made that navigation a bit easier with a 2018 GABF Week Events Guide. Too much to sort through and choose? Don’t worry, chuggernaut, we got you covered.

2018 GABF Week Events Guide

Something we missed? Is your brewery hosting a GABF event? Feel free to contact us and we’ll update this list.

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