Beer Events
Event Preview | San Diego Beer Week
October 29, 2019 | Jadon Flores
There is nothing better for the local community of beer lovers in San Diego than San Diego Beer week! Although advertised as a “week,” this year it will take place over the course of 10 days, November 1-10, all throughout San Diego. For the most comprehensive list of events, pairings, beer releases and dinners, go to the SDBW website, but here we’re going to be talking about some of the cool events happening, where they will be and then you can decide which ones you are going to try and make! Be sure to check if events are ticketed, shown by 🎫 Read More
Event Preview | Traverse City Craft Beer Week
October 28, 2019 | Mike Zoller
Known for beautiful scenery, cherries and wine, Northern Michigan’s Traverse City has also become a hotbed for craft breweries. With a population of just over 15,000, the city has 10 breweries and even more in the surrounding towns. The Traverse City Craft Beer Week is an opportunity to explore the region’s expanding craft beer offerings.
Event Preview | Detroit Beer Experiment at the Detroit Fall Beer Festival
October 23, 2019 | Danny King
The Michigan Brewers’ Guild 11th Annual Detroit Fall Beer festival is coming up this week (Friday and Saturday, October 25-26), which means Detroit beer fans (and writers) get the privilege of having some of the best breweries in the state in their backyard. It also means the return of the Detroit Beer Experiment. Last year, the festival provided fans with the enjoyable Faygo-infused (and inspired) beers, so what’s in store for this year? We asked Dave Cicotte of Brew Detroit, who was able to provide a sneak preview.
PorchDrinking’s Weekly Denver Beer Beat | October 23, 2019
October 23, 2019 | Jeremiah Cornelius
The Denver Beer Beat is a weekly roundup of brewery openings, special tappings, firkins and one-off batches, bottle releases, dinners, pairings, and more happening in the Front Range and beyond. Be sure to check in each Wednesday to discover anything and everything happening around Colorado’s beer scene. Now let’s get to this week’s can’t miss beer events. Read More
Beer Event | Collabapalooza Recap
October 22, 2019 | Jadon Flores
This past weekend was one of the most highly rated beer festivals in Southern California: Collabapalooza. The ethos of the beer festival is a sense of community within the beer industry–in most cases, all of the breweries involved were friends with each other and the brewers were all trying each other’s beer while talking shop. As we got to talk to several breweries in the preview article on the beers they were bringing, we got to experience the selection of a ridiculous tap list contributed by all the breweries. Here are some standouts.
Previewing Epic Brewing’s 2019 Big Bad Baptist Variants
October 17, 2019 | Tristan Chan
From WeldWerks to Holy Mountain, Moksa to Prairie, many of today’s most hyped rising American breweries can attribute part of their rabid following to proficiency in producing barrel-aged Stouts and subsequent variant spinoffs.
PorchDrinking’s Weekly Denver Beer Beat | October 16, 2019
October 16, 2019 | Jeremiah Cornelius
The Denver Beer Beat is a weekly roundup of brewery openings, special tappings, firkins and one-off batches, bottle releases, dinners, pairings, and more happening in the Front Range and beyond. Be sure to check in each Wednesday to discover anything and everything happening around Colorado’s beer scene. Now let’s get to this week’s can’t miss beer events. Read More
2019 Festival of Wood & Barrel-Aged Beer Announces FoBAB Brewery List
October 16, 2019 | Mathew Powers
The 17th Annual Festival of Wood & Barrel-Aged Beer (FoBAB), the world’s largest barrel-aged beer festival and competition, will occur in Chicago on Nov. 8-9 at the University of Illinois-Chicago. More than 200 craft breweries from across the United States will showcase innovative, rare and special barrel-aged brews, while also competing for top honors in The National Barrel-Aged Beer Competition.
“FoBAB continues to be a one-of-a-kind showcase of the creativity, innovation and passion that defines the craft beer industry,” said Danielle D’Alessandro, executive director for the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild, host of FoBAB for 17 years. “We’re thrilled to provide a venue for breweries across the nation to feature their barrel-aged beer to thousands of enthusiasts from all over the world.”
Event Preview | A Comprehensive Guide to Ohio’s Ale-O-Ween
October 15, 2019 | David Nilsen
Leaves are falling, Ohio evenings are getting crisp and jack o’ lanterns are smiling from porches across the Buckeye state. It’s time for the Ohio Craft Brewers Association’s Ale-O-Ween in downtown Dayton!
Firestone Walker’s Terroir Project | An Experimental Crossover
October 15, 2019 | Robert French
For many people, the expectation is that breweries must always be innovating to be relevant. While smaller breweries have the luxury of chasing a trend and nimbly playing the field, many larger and established breweries find this a challenging task. Firestone Walker, though one of the larger craft breweries, has continued to find a way to create their own space. Whether it’s through unique beer releases or highly curated events, they always seem to be up for the challenge. Read More
Collabapalooza Beer Fest Returns to San Diego
October 14, 2019 | Jadon Flores
Collabapalooza is one of the top-rated beer festivals in southern California. On Saturday, October 19, more than 30 breweries will overtake the backlot of NorthPark Observatory to showcase a plethora … Read More
2019 Denver Rare Beer Tasting Brings Out the Elite During GABF Week
October 11, 2019 | David Nilsen
Utopias on Cherries. Coconut Brandy Medianoche. Millerzzzzz. 5 Candles.
If you’d thrown a dart at the pour list for Denver Rare Beer Tasting 11 at the McNichols Civic Center in … Read More
PorchDrinking’s Weekly Denver Beer Beat | October 9, 2019
October 9, 2019 | Jeremiah Cornelius
The Denver Beer Beat is a weekly roundup of brewery openings, special tappings, firkins and one-off batches, bottle releases, dinners, pairings, and more happening in the Front Range and beyond. Be sure to check in each Wednesday to discover anything and everything happening around Colorado’s beer scene. Now let’s get to this week’s can’t miss beer events. Read More
2019 Great American Beer Festival | Obscure & Historical Beer Styles
October 8, 2019 | David Nilsen
Pastry stouts, hazy IPAs and rare sours tend to command most of the buzz at the Great American Beer Festival; the lines at brewery booths pouring those beers last week in Denver certainly attested to that. However, I chose a different tasting route for my festival experience. As I wandered the festival floor, I didn’t so much choose “the road less traveled” as much as an overgrown path forgotten by time: I wanted to taste as many obscure, historical beer styles as I could.
GABF offers a wonderful educational opportunity for anyone who wants to taste styles largely lost to history. Want to know what a gruit tastes like? Want to compare multiple export stouts or Dortmunder lagers beside each other? You’ll never have a better chance to do it than at GABF.
Read More
Oxbow Brewing Company | Pils & Love Collaboration Lager
October 8, 2019 | Kevin Kain
The third Pils & Love Festival returned to Portland, ME this past July and, to honor the occasion, approximately 40 of the 60 participating breweries gathered to make a collaboration brew (a list of the breweries that participated is below). The festival was hosted by Oxbow Brewing Company and furthers a state-side version of Birrificio Italiano’s Pils Pride festival in Italy. Birrificio Italiano is known for its Tipopils, which puts a spin on a German pilsner by dry-hopping the beer, something prohibited by the Reinheitsgebot; the Pils & Love collaboration beer takes its inspiration from Birrificio Italiano’s classic. Read More
2019 GABF Awards Results | Who Won Big at This Year’s Competition
October 5, 2019 | Tristan Chan
The 2019 Great American Beer Festival has crowned their newest batch of champions and standouts. This year, the competition portion of GABF saw 9,497 entries from 2,295 breweries across … Read More
2019 Great American Beer Fest | Standouts and Recap from Day One
October 4, 2019 | Mike Zoller
As bagpipers marched into the Colorado Convention Center Thursday evening to officially usher in the 38th annual Great American Beer Festival the PorchDrinking team was feverishly sampling as many beers as possible, to discover hidden gems and standouts from night one.
PorchDrinking’s 2019 Great American Beer Festival Survival Guide
October 2, 2019 | Mathew Powers
The Great American Beer Festival began in 1982 with 24 breweries serving 47 beers to fans for a single, five-hour session. Today, the number of external events exceed the beers poured at that first fest, and the convention hall will allow patrons to select from more than 3,500 beers. What do you drink? Where do you go? How can one possibly navigate such a colossal beer experience? We at PorchDrinking.com have tried to make the process simpler, writing more than a dozen stories on the event. And, to further simplify it, we have now put all those stories in one location.
First a few important notes on this year’s festival:
- A few tickets still remain for Thursday Night and Saturday Night sessions. Tickets available here.
- This year’s festival format returns to booths being arranged alphabetically by region.
- Attendees of ALL sessions will receive glass cups instead of plastic.
- Thursday Night, Friday Night and Saturday Night Sessions begin at 5:30, Saturday’s Day Session begins at Noon. For first time attendees, we recommend arriving at least an hour and a half before your session to wait in line.
- Don’t forget to check out other sections for hidden gem beers. The Brewers Guild section has guild representatives from several states that bring beers from breweries that aren’t otherwise pouring on the festival floor.
- The Heavy Medal section has beers pouring from past GABF medal winners.
- There’s a Fresh Hop booth with all fresh/wet-hopped beers.
- Several breweries will have special timed releases that aren’t otherwise listed on the pour list. Modern Times Beer, for example, will have a different special release each day of the fest.
Enjoy GABF. Enjoy Beer. Enjoy Craft in all it glory. And here are more tools to help you enjoy the week.
2019 GABF Guided Routes | Fruit-Forward Beers to Try at GABF
October 1, 2019 | Karen Mills
This was made possible by Molly’s Spirits, your go-to stop for some of the best local and national beer drops throughout GABF week and beyond!
For the past two months, … Read More
2019 GABF Guided Routes | Sour & Wild Beers to Try at GABF
October 1, 2019 | Tristan Chan
This was made possible by Molly’s Spirits, your go-to stop for some of the best local and national beer drops throughout GABF week and beyond!
For the past two months, our staff has been researching styles for each beer pouring at the Great American Beer Festival. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through that list of beers to bring you a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.
recent comments