The Illinois Breweries That Produce GABF-Winning Hazy Beers (And That’s Not All They Do)

The Brewers Association introduced the Hazy/Juicy IPA category for the Great American Beer Fest awards in 2018, reflecting the style’s presence and impact within the brewing world — and the first gold medal went to Chicago’s Alarmist Brewing with its Le Jus. Eris Brewery & Cider won bronze in that same category for its Folken Haze. The next year, Old Irving followed with another gold for its ever-popular Beezer. Indeed, Chicago stood as king of the hazy-beer hill. All told, seven Illinois breweries have received a total of nine medals (four gold) in five years for the hazy/juicy Pale Ale, Strong Pale Ale, IPA and Imperial IPA categories. Here are the The Illinois Breweries that Produce GABF-winning Hazy Beers, and a little more about what they brew, serve, and offer.

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Texas Ties Highest Medal Count at 2022 GABF Competition

Texas breweries brought home 21 medals at the Great American Beer Festival Competition, tying their medal count from 2017. Texas had a strong bounce back after only winning 14 medals in 2021 and 10 medals in 2020.

There were 18 first-time GABF winners and seven of those were Texas breweries; 3 Nations, Edgewise Eight, Mad Pecker, Maple Branch, Old 290, Pecan Street and Roadmap. Texas was the third most awarded state behind California and Colorado.

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2022 Great American Beer Fest Day 1 Recap | Standouts and Hidden Gems

The bagpipers did more than kick-off the 40th annual Great American Beer Fest; they signaled the end of a two-year hiatus caused by the global pandemic. And with that re-start, the PorchDrinking team is back roaming the aisles and aisles of booths, sampling beer and taking notes. Without further ado, here is our team’s GABF Day 1 Recap – our favorites and hidden gems.

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The Complete PorchDrinking 2022 GABF Week Events Guide

Part of the magic associated with the return of GABF involves all of the incredible beer events that take place outside of the actual festival. Although technically the Great American Beer Fest (GABF) begins on Thursday, October 6 and runs through Saturday, October 8, the festivities begin well before the main event and continue throughout the week.

From special tap takeovers to paired beer dinners, out-of-state bottle releases, and collaborations to full-fledged beer festivals, the beer world descends upon Denver in all of its glory. With over a week jam-packed full of events, it can be a bit hard to navigate. Luckily we’re here to help sort through it all with the return of our 2022 GABF Week Events Guide.

2022 GABF Routes: Select a routeLagers & Session BeersChocolate BeersHoppy Beers

Be sure to bookmark this page or check back often as we will continue to update the page as events are released.
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2022 Great American Beer Festival Pour List Released + Initial Can’t Misses

The wait is nearly over as the Great American Beer Festival returns in less than a month. Returning October 6-8, the country’s largest beer event will celebrate its 40th anniversary after a two-year hiatus. And while this year’s festival footprint is noticeably smaller due to renovations to the Colorado Convention Center, upon first glance the breweries and beers that are anticipated to be poured look like a true return to glory.

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Ultimate 6er | ‘Lover’ Comes to Great American Beer Festival

The Great American Beer Fest is an awe-inspiring menagerie of beer. Good beer, weird beers, surprising styles, and not nearly enough time to give them all a thoughtful pause. It can be overwhelming to know where to start, so we over at PorchDrinking have several different routes that we have planned out to make it easier for those who love specific styles. There isn’t really a wrong way to do GABF (except not drinking water, please drink water) so here is a way to dive in that is more musically inclined.

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PorchDrinking’s 2019 Great American Beer Festival Survival Guide

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.

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2019 GABF Guided Routes | Fruit-Forward Beers to Try at GABF

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

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.

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2019 GABF Guided Routes | Hoppy Beers to Try at GABF

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 | Lagers & Session Beers to Try at GABF

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 | Big Beers & Pastry Stouts to Try at GABF

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.

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Detailed Pour List | What’s Pouring at the 2019 Great American Beer Festival

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!

While the initial pour list for the 2019 Great American Beer Festival was first announced two months ago, we’ve gone through the list and updated each beer with detailed style descriptions (as best as available) to help you plan for your festival tasting experience.

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Recapping 2018 GABF’s Best Beers and Emerging Breweries

America’s largest beer festival has come to a close once again. After a week fueled by obscene amounts of beer, even greater volumes of caffeine, and the occasional Illegal Pete’s burrito, we’ve emerged once again from the clutches of the Great American Beer Festival, with an entirely new perspective on the newest crop of talent in craft beer.

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GABF Awards Results | Who Won Big at the 2018 GABF

The 2018 Great American Beer Festival has crowned their newest batch of champions and standouts. This year, the competition portion of GABF saw 8,800 entries from 2,450 breweries across the country, not to mention an additional 105 Pro-Am entries. 

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2017 GABF Pour List Preview

As the 2017 Great American Beer Festival approaches, I bet you’re wondering what kind of delights you can expect to sample on the festival. A hazy IPA from that Vermont brewery that doesn’t distribute in your state? A rare whale stout aged in the most fantastic of barrels? A wild, enamel-stripping sour ale full of hand-picked snozberries? PorchDrinking has you covered!

GABF Routes: Big Beers | Funk, Sours & Wilds | Hoppy Beers

(More: 38 Can’t-Miss Colorado Events During GABF)

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Avery & Odell Effin’ Teamwork Stout Takes GABF Collaboration to the Next Level

To commemorate this year’s Great American Beer Festival, several breweries have already announced collaborative projects, however few tally as storied histories as Avery and Odell Brewing. Odell founded in 1989 and Avery, which launched in 1993, constitute two of the country’s earliest pioneers in the recent craft beer resurgence. Next week during craft beer’s largest stage, their mutual appreciation toward each other’s craft will manifest in the release of a collaboration beer unlike any other.

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BREAKING | 2017 GABF’s New, Returning & Missing Breweries

Each year one of the most exciting aspects of the Great American Beer Festival is the ability to explore and sample some of the country’s best new breweries that have emerged on the scene. Additionally, it can be equally as rewarding to revisit some familiar faces you may only get to try once each year at the country’s largest beer showcase. However with the growing nature of the festival, and the Brewer’s Association’s move to a lottery system, we also tend to lose some familiar friends. As we’ve done each year, we’ve broken down the new / returning breweries as well as those who sadly aren’t coming back for this year’s Great American Beer Festival.

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The Complete Guide to Buying 2017 GABF Tickets

This year marks the 36th anniversary of the Great American Beer Festival, and it’s expected to draw a record approximation of nearly 900 breweries pouring at the fest. We’ve got everything you need to know to score tickets to the 2017 GABF during today’s general public sale.

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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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