I had the good fortune to attend GABF a couple of weeks ago. I’d heard lots about the festival over the years and it just popped up in conversation on the last day of the June tour with Mike and Andrea, who happen to be from Denver and who have volunteered at the festival in the past. It’s always a sell out in under an hour, they suggested coming as a volunteer to experience the biggest beer festival in the world. Before I knew it I was nominated by them to be a volunteer and was on the Greeting Team at Denver’s Convention Centre.

Denver is a cool city with good vibes, mountain views and breweries all around you. It’s really laid back and the perfect place to host a beer festival such as GABF which attracts 60,000 people over 3 days. And what a party it was , 780 breweries pouring almost 4,000 beers made it a pretty full on task but I at least tried to sample beers from all the regions, the big hall was broken down into Great Lakes, Pacific, Pacific NW, South East, Mountain, Mid Atlantic, Midwest and South west. There was a real carnival type atmosphere and many people dressed up for the occasion. If you wanted to eat, you had to wear the food so there were some very creative pretzel, meats and cheese soakage snacks hanging around people’s necks.

I couldn’t possibly pick a favourite beer but the sours really impressed as we are just dipping a toe into sours here in Ireland but there were some very tasty soured beers available. A really fun experience volunteering and attending the Great American Beer Festival. Some pics from the event:

Russian River Brewery provide a great candidate, Pliny the Elder is an amazing beer

Ska Brewing had a delicious Modus Mandarina IPA pouring

Only in Colorado

This girl dressed for the occassion

A great range of beers from Oskar Blues, a local Colorado brewery