Great American Beer Festival Through the Eyes of a First Timer

After hearing for years about the almighty master of beer festivals that is the Great American Beer Festival, I finally got the opportunity to check it out for myself on the final session of the 2015 event. No research or stories from friends’ past experiences could prepare me for the world that I was about to enter.

Having attended a few small beer festivals before, I went into it with a solid list of beers and breweries which I hoped to check out. However, upon entering the Colorado Convention Center, all plans were thrown out the window. As soon as I entered the venue I was ambushed by the sheer magnitude of breweries and choices that stretched as far as the eye could see. And if that wasn’t enough, the variety of costume clad crazies had me stuck between trying to decide if I should take another picture or take another beer. This mind state was only magnified with every sip I took.

After wandering throughout the convention center sampling a variety of beers for the first couple of hours, we stumbled upon a Q & A session in the Brewer’s Studio Pavilion titled “The Intersection of Beer and Music.” This was perfect for me, being an avid music photographer and beer lover, it combined two of my favorite things. The panel included Kyle Hollingsworth of String Cheese Incident, Isaac and Taylor Hanson of Hanson, Matt Potts of Destihl Brewery, Jesse Miller of Lotus and was lead by Bradley Latham of the Brewer’s Association. The discussion covered a variety of topics on the similarities between brewing and music creativity and how different styles of both music and beer influenced the day to day work of the various panelists. The discussion closed out the Festival with a sweet little jam session which included Hollingsworth, the Hanson Brothers and even Bradley Lathem joined in. Even if it meant missing some time sampling some beers, this was the perfect way to close my first GABF.

In the end, I tried 24 beers total, a mere .5% of the total beers on tap at the festival. That’s pretty weak if you ask me. Sure, I didn’t expect to drink every beer but I thought I would be able to get at least double that in. Hopefully future GABFs offer me the opportunity to make it out to more sessions. Now that I’ve gotten the first one down, I know what to expect and can plan accordingly. Starting with a pretzel necklace. Here is what I saw at the festival and my Top 5 beers from the day: