It’s the Mecca and the Wonderland of craft beer. It’s heaven without dying. It’s three days of more than 450 breweries from 47 states pouring over 2,300 beers (roughly 36,000 gallons) for nearly 50,000 beer lovers and holding the Guinness World Record for most beers tapped in one location.
It’s the Great American Beer Festival and it’s possible that great is just not a big enough word.
In a week, from September 29th-October 1st, beer lovers from all over the world will converge on Denver, Colorado for three days of craft beer, food, seminars and much more.
In it's 30th year, the Great American Beer Festival simply continues to get bigger and better as 2,375 different beers will be poured on the festival floor. This year's festival also set a record by selling out in just one week.
There will be a plethora of tastings, seminars of every kind from brewing to cooking and food pairings, classes on how to judge beer, book signings, merchandise stands and one of the most popular events, the Pro-Am.
For the Pro-Am event, beers created and submitted by individuals in the American Homebrewers Association are brewed by professional brewers on a commercial scale. Last year, three awards went to Pro-Am entries and the Gold medal went to local Eagle Rock Brewery who entered the Red Velvet from homebrewer Donny Hammel, a home brewer from Camarillo.
The Farm to Table seminar, in its third year and one of the GABFs most popular events, will bring local farmers together with brewers to talk about cooking and pairing food and beer and to “showcase the high quality flavors available from small independent producers.” Nebraska Brewing Company from Omaha and Real Ale from Blanco, Texas are two of this year's first-timers for this Thursday and Friday night event.
The GABF is being held in the Colorado Convention Center for the 12th year. Breweries in the Hall are divided into eight U.S. regions: Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Rocky Mountain, New England, Pacific, Pacific Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest.
The greater Los Angeles/Orange County area will be represented by some of our local breweries that will be entering and/or pouring at the GABF:
- The Bruery, Placentia
- Eagle Rock Brewery, Los Angeles
- Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie, Agoura Hills
- Newport Beach Brewing Company, Newport Beach
- Beachwood BBQ & Brewing, Long Beach
- Noble Aleworks, Anaheim
- Bootlegger’s Brewery, Fullerton
- Inland Empire Brewing, Riverside
- Packinghouse Brewing Company, Riverside
- Tustin Brewing Company, Tustin
- Main Street Brewery, Corona
- Steelhead Brewing Co, Irvine
- BJ's Restaurant & Brewery, Huntington Beach (locations all over LA/OC)
- Karl Strauss Brewing Company, (locations throughout SoCal)
- Telegraph Brewing Company, Santa Barbara
- Firestone Walker Brewing, Paso Robles (not really LA but we love em!)
If you are there, stop by and say hello to your local breweries and make sure to support them all back at home!
Cheers!
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