GABF Running Diary

Last week I published some perspective on the Great American Beer Festival focused around counter-points to the common reasons NOT to attend. The following is a less coherent running diary of reactions to my two-and-a-half days Denver. Enjoy.

The 7:00 AM Beer…

I get the excitement of traveling to the Craft Brewers Conference or GABF. I get that this is a week or weekend about beer. And as I’ve blown through my late 30’s and hit my early 40’s, I get that my ability to recover from alcohol has taken a hit far greater than the average Xennial. Yet each time I’m at the airport, I am still amazed to see that I’m literally the only person in a brewery hoodie who doesn’t want a $13.00 beer at the airport before their 7:30am flight. But I digress…

6:50am

Denver’s Billboard Effect

Speaking of beer in airports, from the moment you get off a plane in Denver, you’ll never question why Denver gets to host GABF and so many other great beer conferences each year. You’re immediately confronted with satellite taprooms, brewery merch stores, and advertisements at each step of the way. If you drive in to the city, you will see billboards all the way in for different Colorado breweries like O’dell, Oskar Blues, and New Belgium, as well as out-of-state brewers like Sierra Nevada.

“Reluctantly Crouched At the Starting Line 🎶 “

The crowds might have been peaked last decade, what with so many new local and regional festivals having risen since then, but lord were there still a lot of people turning out…

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The People Watching

And I forgot how good the people watching is with so many showing up in themed costumes or with five course meals attached to their clothing. Special shoutout to the guy wearing 50 lbs of bottle openers:

Steady Lagering

While venturing around the fest, I was curious if I’d see an uptick in lagers and while there were plenty, perhaps more than ever, I didn’t get any kind of feeling that lager was on trend. It felt like all the greatest hits of popular beer styles from the last decade. For Revolution, we poured 2 barrel-aged beers (one traditional, one fruited), a new school IPA, and our Premium Lager set to launch next year. I’d say we had a pretty evenly distributed interest in all four, where as normally there’s a major outlier that draws more of a crowd. As much as I love lagers personally, small 1 oz pours of them don’t really help me form an opinion like they can with other styles so I don’t really go to festivals for lagers.

“Sour” Feeling the Love

I feel like funky beer needs National Direct-to-Consumer shipping more than any other style, to finally provide a tailwind. These styles have their fans but they’re spread out wide. They want the best of the best, but there’s format, price, and occasion-related challenges to contend with. Despite “Sour” having a tough go of it, you couldn’t walk past the Lost Abbey table and not find a line of at least 20-30 in line looking to taste as many of their six offerings as possible, deservedly so. Thankfully I knew a guy:

Vendors…Chill Out

I love all the businesses that surround craft beer and provide us with everything we need to make our breweries run, but this isn’t a B2B trade show floor. GABF is for the fans. Yet I can’t begin to tell you how many people were trying to generate leads while brewery representatives were trying to keep up with a long line of thirsty patrons. Visiting an existing client to try their beers, say hello, maybe even put a face to the name is very smart and highly encouraged, but hunting for prospects who are in the middle of pouring is as bad as these AI-generated e-mails that plague my inbox.

Tik-Tok, Tik-Tok

Last time I poured at GABF, I may have been approached by 6 or 7 people who follow on Instagram and wanted to chit chat. This time around and since going down a similar path on TikTok, I must have been approached no less than 75 times in 2.5 days with almost all mentioning TikTok, not Instagram. If anything, I promoted my attendance more the first time around than this trip. My point? There’s a massive new audience on TikTok who are excited about craft beer. Don’t sleep on them.

When in Foam

Denver is packed with awesome breweries for visitors to hit up during their stay, but in more recent years Bierstadt Lagerhaus captured the hearts and minds of brewers as a must-stop for Lagers and their signature Slow Pour Pils. In 2021, a second option opened that’s been grabbing attention for similar reasons, only with a Czech-style focus. Cohesion Brewing was one of the highlights of my trip where I could order one of three different pouring styles from each of their Lukr faucets. Pictured below was my Hladinka pour, followed by my group’s Mliko pours which you’re supposed to down in one foamie chug (took me three…).

The Medal Round

Starting Early I Guess - Fun police warning 🚨 After two straight days of pouring, visiting breweries, and little sleep, does a 10:00am Awards Ceremony need to be encouraging drinking that early? Apparently yes as there were tables everywhere handing out beers to brewers at 9:30am as they head into the auditorium to hold their seats.

An Unexpected Visitor - One of the biggest highlights of my fest was a visit from Sun King Brewery’s co-founder Clay, who I stood behind the booth talking shop with for at least an hour. Of the thousands of breweries participating, I’m not sure there’s a bigger GABF legend than Sun King in recent memory. In 2019, I sat in the audience as their name was called 4 times, 3 of which were Gold. Their dominance continued in the years since, then they took another two home in the awards ceremony on Saturday. I picked Clay’s brain on how they do it and let’s just say it starts with making it a company goal, so its no coincidence that they’re at the top of the pack when it comes to getting on stage.

Dangling a Carrot - There’s such a satisfying feeling to discovering a beer on the GABF floor, talking it up to your friends or colleagues, then finding out that it won a medal, let alone Gold. When I attended in 2019, I remembered an Carrot Elderflower Saison from Ratio Beerworks that I talked up to my colleagues before even knowing if it was pouring in 2023. Sure enough, they had it again, everyone loved it, then we felt extra invested when it took Gold.

COLD IPA Gets It’s Day

After being compared to the Brut IPA by cynics in 2020-2021, the Cold IPA remains a part of the conversation in the world of specialty one-off IPAs and even variety pack exclusives for the national & regional brewers. The Brewers Association now acknowledges the style by combining it with it’s uncle India Pale Lager, as they both come from the same principle concept. To add to the naming confusion, the Gold medalist called “Sound Sail” from MadeWest Brewing Co. is referred to as a West Coast Pilsner on their website 🤷

Pastry Two for One

Speaking of modern styles, San Diego’s Modern Times went hard after the Pastry Stout category, winning two of the three medals. After a tumultuous 2020-2022 where everything seemingly went wrong, leading to an ownership change to Maui Brewing, the brewery returned to it’s roots and flexed its dominance in an important, contemporary category. A great win for the employees who stuck with it through those years.

Head Hunter Undisputed Champion

In about as impressive of a feat as we’ve seen in a single calendar year, Fat Head’s Head Hunter IPA survived the gauntlet of the two biggest competition’s of the year in the most contested and arguably prestigious category, American India Pale Ale. Back to back gold medals is absolutely absurd and proves the first was no fluke, but we already knew that. Personally, I’m from Pittsburgh where Fat Head’s originated as a Brewpub so I’ve always had a beer crush on them. Then my buddies & neighbors Chris and Mike of the Beer Temple Podcast which I’m a semi-recurring guest on have been hyping Head Hunter for years.

Russian River

At the Russian River table, there was a really long line for one beer, but you could walk right up and try the others. Naturally it was DDH Pliny the Elder with the line, but it was the Intinction - Sauvignon Blanc that I painlessly got a sample of. I bet you’ll never guess which one took home the hardware…yes, the Intinction with no line. Speaking of Russian River, they won another medal for a beer called Docta-Ron and while I’d never heard of it, I knew exactly what it was just from the name. Dr. Ron is a recently retired New Zealand hop legend who the variety Nectaron was named after. For me, this is one of the two or so most exciting hops on the market right now. He visited our brewery back in the Spring.

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A Beer Crunchers Dream - My final night in Denver saw me running into my former colleague and founder of 3 Tier Beverages, Donn Bichsel. He asked if I was heading to the hotel bar and wanted to have a drink. Fast forward 15 minutes and I’m sitting around some couches drinking Old Fashions with him and his partner Joe Sepka, BA Chief Economist Bart Watson, Brewbound’s Zoe Licata, and Lost Abbey Founder Tomme Arthur. Pretty much a dream crew to talk shop with and digress about a great few days in Denver.

Out of Characters - Substack just warned me that this post is getting too long so I’m going to cut it off there. Don’t go to GABF because it’s going to improve the velocity of your beer sales. Go for the people, the conversations, the research, the inspiration, and the chance to get out of dodge and reset your mind a bit. If you were there, I’d love to hear any observations you had and if you liked this format let me know and I’ll do it again for other big events I attend.