Beer Celebrities To Look For At The Great American Beer Fest

The Great American Beer Festival is the perfect opportunity for beer geeks, like yours truly, to rub elbows with the best in the craft beer industry. And while you may be a bit blown away when spotting some of these industry titans, please refrain from actually rubbing their elbows. That’s awkward.

Most of these iconic brewers will be manning their booths, and we’ve gotten confirmation that two musical legends (the Hanson Brothers are totally legends, right?) will be at the festival.
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2016 GABF Route Preview | Funk, Sours, and Wilds

For the past month and a half our staff has been reaching out to every brewery attending the Great American Beer Festival to try to preview what they’ll be bringing to the fest. 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.

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2016 GABF Fantasy Brewery Draft Picks

The results of this year’s 2016 GABF Fantasy Brewery Draft Picks:

We here at PorchDrinking believe beer should be fun. So three years ago we set out to add a different take on the Great American Beer Festival by inviting a mix of national and local writers to participate in our GABF Fantasy Brewery Draft. Each year we draft breweries based on how we believe they’ll finish during GABF awards ceremony and earn points based on those finishes.

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2016 GABF Route Preview | Big Beers Route

For the past month and a half our staff has been reaching out to every brewery attending the Great American Beer Festival to try to preview what they’ll be bringing to the fest. 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.

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LIVE DRAFT | 2016 GABF Fantasy Brewery Draft

We here at PorchDrinking believe beer should be fun. So three years ago we set out to add a different take on the Great American Beer Festival by inviting a mix of national and local writers to participate in our GABF Fantasy Brewery Draft. Each year we draft breweries based on how we believe they’ll finish during GABF awards ceremony and earn points based on those finishes.

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Ultimate 6er | Austin Breweries to Try at GABF

The problem with Austin beers is that most of them never make it out of the state, (unless you have a good beer mail connection), due to the sheer size of the state and the ravenous consumption here. Several Austin breweries will be pouring at GABF this year and many of them are pouring beers that you can rarely even get in Austin. So get your pencils ready and mark down these Austin staples on your list of must-try beers!

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Event Preview | Beerliner and Chill: Brewer’s Health Initiative

Beerliner & Chill: Brewer’s Health Initiative rolls into town on Wednesday, October 5, just in time for GABF! For a little bit of history on this event we have to roll back a few years to September 2013 when Davis Tucker, owner of NxNW Restaurant & Brewery in Austin, Texas, decided to ride 1400 miles from Texas to Colorado in honor of his brewmaster Don Thompson’s prostate cancer diagnosis. Read More

2016 GABF | Must-Attend GABF Events

WELCOME TO GABF WEEK 2016! Time to skull some coldies! We have been updating our events calendar for the last few weeks and we realize that it is quite daunting planning out your GABF week. That’s why we are here. I say we because I usually update the calendar solo style but this year we have added Jeremy Cornelius to the Denver Beer Beat team. We have a lot going on in the calendar (we have compiled some 300 plus events!) but have highlighted some of our favorite events to help narrow down the field.

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2016 GABF Pour List Preview

With 775+ breweries in attendance and 3,500+ beers available for sampling, the dazzling array of choices at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival could overwhelm even the most seasoned beer enthusiasts. Are you looking for all the sours? IPAs? Barleywines? Look no more!

Continuing one of our favorite GABF traditions, we reached out to every brewery attending the festival this year to get a preview of what they will be pouring. We hope our exclusive pour list preview will give you a head start on planning the best route possible through the maze of GABF breweries in order to gain the best beer for your buck. Read More

Updated | 2016 Complete List of Breweries Attending GABF

*Be sure to check back often as we’ll be bringing complete GABF coverage leading up to, during and after the festival*

Approximately 830 Breweries. 4 Sessions. 3 Days. Nearly 4000 beers. 60,000 attendees. This year’s Great American Beer Festival is back and ready to celebrate its 35th Anniversary. The field has finally been set, and we now know which breweries will be part of the world’s largest beer festival. As we do each year, we’ve got the full 2016 GABF Brewery list. We will also break down the breweries who are new to the festival, as well as those breweries who are notably missing – with that update coming in a few moments. Read More

Complete Guide to Scoring 2016 GABF Tickets

This year’s Great American Beer Festival celebrates its 35th Anniversary, which means if last year was bigger, better and beerier, 2016 till be teeming at the seams. And we’ve got everything you need to know to score tickets to the 2016 GABF.

Last year’s expansion of convention center capacity brought the event from 49,000 attendees to upwards of 60,000 attendees. Additionally the extra space allowed an extra 120 some breweries to be added bringing the count up from 710 breweries in 2014 to 830 in 2015 as well as nearly 4,000 beers poured on the festival floor. Read More

Denver Rare Beer Tasting VIII Brewery List Released by Pints for Prostates

Tickets for Pints for Prostates Awareness Event on Sale Father’s Day

The list of 54 craft brewers committed to serve beer at the Denver Rare Beer Tasting VIII has been released by Pints for Prostates.

The prostate cancer awareness event will be held on Oct. 7 in Colorado during the same weekend as the Great American Beer Festival. The Denver Rare Beer Tasting VIII features the chance to sample rare, exotic and vintage beers from 54 of America’s top craft breweries and the opportunity to meet the men and women who made them.

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*BREAKING* 2016 GABF Ticket Sale Dates Announced

The Brewers Association announced this morning that tickets for the 2016 Great American Beer Festival will go on sale August 2, 2016 and August 3, 2016. This year’s event celebrates … Read More

GABF 2015 | Our Favorite Beer Names

The word cloud above contains the most common words in the names of ~3,800 beers poured at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival. A review of these names with fellow PorchDrinker Brady Akers reminded us that the creativity of craft brewers isn’t limited to their recipes. Some stick to safe, identifiable words and phrases that clearly explain what you can expect from their beer. Others look to pop culture references, inside jokes or even their family for inspiration. After great deliberation and many pun-induced groans, we’d like to share our 15 favorite beer names from GABF 2015. Read More

PorchDrinking Playlist | Are you GABF experienced?

Based on actual events. This story is filled with intense excitement, heightened drama, supreme fun, and the inevitable lows as it all ends. Our GABF experience was a great … Read More

2015 GABF Fantasy Brewery Results

We here at PorchDrinking believe beer should be fun. So two years ago we set out to add a different take on the Great American Beer Festival by inviting a … Read More

Roundtable Discussion | What not to do at GABF

Photo Credit: Thrillist.com

The Great American Beer Festival may be over but the memories made and lessons learned live on, both good and bad. With a week jam-packed full with sessions and events around the city, the PD team was busy drinking it all in [pun intended]. This week’s Roundtable Discussion dives into some of those lessons learned and decisions made that won’t be repeated next year, like that last beer you shouldn’t have had in the parking lot that reserved your spot on the bathroom floor for the rest of the night… yeah, won’t be repeating that one again.

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Ultimate 6er | Reliving Utah’s Past GABF Success

At the time you are reading this, we are either recovering from a week long hangover or dead! GABF would be the way to die. Hundreds of breweries bringing the best beers in the world. There is nothing greater than walking shoulder to shoulder with tens of thousands of like-minded people. Everywhere you turn is a new friend and a beer. Yep, pretty sure we died. Seems like the pearly gates are drenched in golden suds.

We live in Utah and dream of Denver, Bend, San Diego and Asheville. But wait a minute… if you believe in the alcohol lockdown in the Wasatch Mountains, we surely live in beer hell. We are here to say, this is absolutely not true. We present six GABF medal winning beers from the last several years. So when the Zion curtain locks us in, we will be okay, because Utah brewers make some sweet brews. Read More

Major News and Storylines from GABF 2015

Earlier this year, when The Brewers Association announced that the Great American Beer Festival would be Bigger, Better and Beerier, we assumed that was merely a reference to the … Read More

Event Recap | Denver Rare Beer VII

Average Reading Time: 7 minutes

Best event of the #GABF2015 weekend?! We think so. John Maguire and Cory Pelc pontificate on their favorite pours, casual convos with the beer celebs of the craft beer world and provide a minimal amount of criticism. A Recap of all things Denver Rare Beer VII.

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