2024 Great American Beer Fest Night One Recap | Standouts & Hidden Gems

What a difference a year can make.

By 9 p.m. of last year’s Thursday night opening session, I had navigated most of the festival floor and left feeling underwhelmed, confused, and a bit dejected. After covering the biggest and best beer festival in the country for 11 years, the 2023 Great American Beer Festival, to put it politely, felt a bit stale.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Coffee, Cacao, Cocktails & Curiosity with Charlene Cabioch

While the bean in Bean to Barstool primarily refers to cacao for chocolate, and the barstool to craft beer, we have also covered craft coffee and spirits on this podcast periodically, and we’re looking at doing that more often going forward. Today’s guest brings both of those worlds together, giving new meaning to the name Bean to Barstool. Charlene Cabioch is a barista and mixologist from France who has a deep knowledge of both specialties, and has professional awards to prove it. She was a winner at the Aeropress World Championship in 2019, and the Coffee in Good Spirits Championship for coffee-infused cocktails in 2021 and 2023.

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2024 GABF Guided Routes | Fruit-Forward, N/A Beers & Ciders to Try at GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is finally back! With the insane multitude of beers being served on the festival floor, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. So PorchDrinking is once again here to help you navigate that lineup and help with planning your route at the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through every beer pouring at this year’s fest to curate a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.
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2024 GABF Guided Routes | Best Barrel-Aged & High ABV Beers to Try at GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is finally back! With the insane multitude of beers being served on the festival floor, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. So PorchDrinking is once again here to help you navigate that lineup and help with planning your route at the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through every beer pouring at this year’s fest to curate a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.

Earlier this week we featured the best Non-Alcoholic beers at the fest, and this morning we featured lower ABV Lagers, but now we turn up the octane to Barrel-Aged & high ABV beers. This year’s most prolific barrel-aged producers at the festival include 3 Floyds, Firestone Walker, Fremont, Maplewood, More Brewing, Modern Times, Pure Project, Revolution, River North Brewery, and WeldWerks to name a few.
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A Year in Michigan Beer | 52 Brews for All Seasons

Michigan is known as the “Great Beer State” for good reason. With over 400 breweries spread through two peninsulae, there’s no shortage of Michigan beer to try. You could spend an entire year drinking your way through the state and still not see all there is to offer. 

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2024 GABF Guided Routes | Spontaneous / Wild / Sour Beers to Try at GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is finally back! With the insane multitude of beers being served on the festival floor, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. So PorchDrinking is once again here to help you navigate that lineup and help with planning your route at the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through every beer pouring at this year’s fest to curate a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.

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2024 GABF Guided Routes | Hoppy Beers to Try at GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is finally back! With the insane multitude of beers being served on the festival floor, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. So PorchDrinking is once again here to help you navigate that lineup and help with planning your route at the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through every beer pouring at this year’s fest to curate a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.

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BREAKING | 2025 WeldWerks Invitational Festival Returns in February

After taking a two-year hiatus, the WeldWerks Invitational, one of the country’s premiere showcases of rare and specialty beers is primed to return on February 8, 2025. Next year’s festival … Read More

2024 GABF Guided Routes | Best Lagers to Try at GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is finally back! With the insane multitude of beers being served on the festival floor, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. So PorchDrinking is once again here to help you navigate that lineup and help with planning your route at the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through every beer pouring at this year’s fest to curate a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.

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2024 Denver Rare Beer Tasting Pour List Still Brings the Heat

GABF week is finally upon us, and with it returns one of the industry’s best festivals focused on showcasing rare and specialty beers. While the Great American Beer Festival itself does a great job of bringing together the largest collection of beers from around the country into one three-day event, Rare Beer has historically showcased quality and this year is no different.

And while this year’s event does include some slight updates including a move to Thursday, October 10 from 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. instead of its usual Friday slot, and a new location in Bierstadt Lagerhaus, both changes bode for the better.

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Lone Tree Brewing | Vanilla Caramel Amber

Lone Tree Brewing Vanilla Caramel Amber combines flavors that, while a seemingly natural pairing, is a relatively rare one in the beer world. According to Lone Tree co-owner John Winter, few other breweries use these flavors in combination.

“It’s in a category all by itself for the most part,” Winter says. “I don’t see things that even come close to this out in the marketplace.” Read More

Dewey Beer Co. | Sun Camp (West Coast IPA)

Moving from San Diego to a small coastal town in Delaware was not as hard as one might imagine. Arriving to the East Coast in mid-January, I immediately missed the nearly perfect weather, but have now embraced seasonality and the beauty of change. When I find myself longing for SoCal, it’s not the sunshine, the surf or the endless summer that I am missing, it’s the beer. That is until Dewey Beer Co. released Sun Camp, a 6% West Coast IPA I now turn to when I’m California dreamin’.

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The Complete PorchDrinking 2024 GABF Week Events Guide

Start prepping your livers accordingly because the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), the largest beer festival in the country, is set to return October 10-12, 2024. And while the festival itself serves as the ultimate showcase of craft beer across three jam-packed sessions, what happens outside of the Convention Center has evolved into a spectacle in and of itself. Throughout the years a multitude of external beer events have popped up at breweries, beer bars, restaurants and more offering beer fans a unique opportunity to explore rare and exciting new beers from breweries not typically available in the state of Colorado but also serve to showcase some of the best that the state of Colorado can offer.
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How To Support The Beer Community In Western NC

Hurricane Helene has devastated Western North Carolina. Folks are still missing, lives have been lost, homes have been swept away and small businesses have been destroyed. It is a horrific time for these mountain communities, and we know the beer community is looking to help.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Pairing Standard-Strength Porters and Stout with Craft Chocolate

In this bonus episode, David Nilsen explains which types of craft chocolate to seek out and which to avoid when pairing with standard-strength Porters and Stouts.

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2024 GABF Out-of-State Beer Drops Available in Denver

When the Great American Beer Festival returns to Denver each year, beer fans benefit not just from the festival itself, but also from the myriad of tap takeovers, mini-festivals, beer dinners, and also specialty beer drops from out-of-state breweries.

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