This year's Great American Beer Festival was my first and when I entered the hall I was completely overwhelmed, and with over 2,100 beers being served, who could blame me? Any plan I had went right out the window causing me to miss out on several breweries that I was targeting (Short's, Surly, and Firestone Walker being my biggest regrets). However, I was able to taste something like 40 different beers (completely made up that number, things were a bit hazy by the end of the session) and several favorites emerged.
Sour beers were the kings of the event and Cascade Brewery from Portland, OR ruled over them all with four amazing sours (Sang Royal, Kriek Ale, The Vine, and GABF silver medalist Vlad the Imp Aler. A few other sour beers that stood out were New Galrus' Old English Porter, New Belgium's Eric's Ale, Alagash's Interlude, and perhaps my favorite (and definitely the most sour) beer at the festival, Cambridge Brewing's Cerise Cassee. I only wish these beers were readily available in Denver.
The beer with the most hype at the event was The Bruery's Black Tuesday Imperial Stout, but I wasn't willing to wait in lines that ranged up to 40 minutes. Luckily, there were plenty of other options available to sate my appetite. My favorites were Full Sail's Black Gold Bourbon Barrel Stout, O'Fallon's Chocolate by the Barrel (a barrel aged version of their Cocoa Cream Stout), Central Waters' Bourbon Barrel Stout, and Brooklyn Brewing's Black Chocolate Stout. Out of these, only the Full Sail beer is available in town.
IPAs were probably the most plentiful style at the Festival with just about every brewery pouring their version. Even with so many options, one IPA was the clear leader of the pack for me; Three Floyd's Dreadnaught. 3F's Double IPA is in the running for best beer I had at the festival and was without a doubt one of the finest IPAs I've ever had. A few others that stood out were Maui Brewing's Smoked RiPA, New Holland's Oaked Mad Hatter IPA, and Hoppin' Frog's Mean Manalish DIPA. Once again none of these beers are distributed to Denver.
There were also several interesting brews at the Festival that used ingredients rarely seen in beer. The front-runners among these were DOG Brewing's Melon Dog (who would have thought watermelon could work so well in beer, very refreshing), Bootleggers' Plum Riot (the first beer I've ever seen made with plums), and Coopersmith's Sigda's Green Chili (the finest chili beer I've tasted, just the right amount of heat). I don't believe any of these are bottled, but you can try the Green Chili beer at Coopersmith's brewpub in Fort Collins.
Another highlight at this year's Festival was Collaboration Evil. Nine breweries from around the country took a common theme (Belgian Strong Ale this year) and put their own individual spin on it. I managed to track down 4 versions of the beer (Flossmoor Station, FiftyFifty Brewing, Lucky Bucket Brewing, & Valley Brewing) with FiftyFifty's rating as my favorite. Lucky Bucket and FiftyFifty also rolled out kicked up versions called Certified Evil and Concentrated Evil respectively. This was the second year of the project and it's a great idea that I hope continues in the future.
All in all, the 2009 Great American Beer Festival was an event to remember and I'm already looking forward to attending it in 2010.
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