One fun thing about GABF is that there always seems to be somebody around who is excited about craft beer and there is no shortage of conversations. While sampling beers at Black Shirt, I met a brewer from New Zealand, who was in town for GABF to judge beers. He couldn’t say what category he was judging but he had just finished for the day and was happy to enjoy a few samplers without having to judge them. “We made the decision in 2015 to invest a lot of time and energy into our barrel aging program and have been producing some great beers over the past year and a half. Drama Queen has always been a big hit in the taproom but we knew we could make that beer better. After several versions we settled on something that we were happy with.
Most of all, this was a way for the community of Aurora and beyond to stand together and be #AuroraStrong. Several other smaller beer festivals are held all over Germany throughout the year. The second largest beer festival in Germany and probably in Europe, is the Cannstatter Volksfest, hosted on the Cannstatter Wasen in the Bad Canstatt district of Stuttgart.
Great Divide brews the beer about 1 mile away, trucks it to this facility, and then packages it. The canning line is huge, as are the massive stacks of cans medalla light beer near me ready to be filled. Our first stop was Tivoli Brewing Company Tap House, which is located in the Auraria neighborhood of Denver, near the Pepsi Center.
Beer lovers are invited to learn more about the dynamic world of craft beer atCraftBeer.comand about homebrewing via the BA’sAmerican Homebrewers Association and the free Brew Guru™ mobile app. First-time GABF competition entrants (self-identified during the registration process) numbered 464. The 2016 gold medal is the third GABF medal for Denver Beer Co. who won a bronze for Graham Cracker Porter in 2011 and bronze for King Ink in 2015. Denver Beer Co. also won gold at the 2016 World Beer Cup with a gold medal for their Red Rye IPA, Summit Sunrise. The 2016 GABF competition winners were selected by an international panel of 264 expert judges from the record number of 7,227 entries, plus 88 Pro-Am entries, received from 1,752 U.S. breweries.
We are thrilled to receive top honors in this very competitive category at GABF,” said Jason Buehler, Head Brewer for Denver Beer Co. Jake’s Brew Bar in Littleton will kick off its GABF-week festivities by tapping a variety of beers from coast to coast. They include Stone Brewing Xocoveza Charred and Oakmeal; Boulevard Brewing Love Child #7 and Rye on Rye Sazerac Barrelled; Ninkasi Critical Hit and Imperial Pumpkin Sleigh’r; and Wicked Weed Freak Double IPA and Xibalba. River North Brewery will bring out Barrel-Aged Nightfare Fuel, its super-stout, aged in whiskey barrels with copious amounts of dark-roast coffee. There will also be a special mussels pairing by Roaming Bull Brasserie.
