Photo ©2010 Jason E. Kaplan.

The Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO which is taking place September 29 – October 1 has been sold out for awhile. I wish I was going but I have a prior engagement.

Anyways, I was searching on Ticket Liquidator this morning for Seahawks tickets and checked and see that they have tickets to GABF for sale. While the cost is a bit steep starting at $150 for a day, if you are really dying to go you still can.

Where else can you find over 450 breweries and 2000 beers in 1 place in the U.S.?

If you still want to go check out their Great American Beer Festival tickets here. Also, a quick search on eBay and I see a few are for sale on there as well.

Are you going to GABF? What are you most excited about?

Yesterday was the first official day of the Beer Bloggers Conference which took place here in Portland, Oregon and I was lucky enough to be able to attend at least one day of the event (although I’m currently in the air flying to New York for another conference, non beer related so I had to cut my time at BBC short).

First of all, I think it’s pretty amazing that the craft beer industry has grown so much that there warrants a need for a conference just for beer bloggers. Over 80 people attended the event and I’m sure it will grow as the years go on. With over 1700 breweries and about 700 more planned in the U.S. alone, there is a lot of blogging to be done.

The event started off with some beer samples from Pyramid (a black IPA), Widmer (an IPA from their rotator series), and Sierra Nevada (a brown ale and something else that I didn’t try). Not a bad way to start a conference, although I forgot to eat lunch which would have helped a ton.

The first to speak was Julia Herz from the Brewers Association / CraftBeer.com who gave a lot of statistics about the growth in the craft beer industry that was definitely encouraging to hear. Later on she whipped out some malt and hop samples which is a great visual for any aspiring beer geek.

Next up was Fred Eckhardt and John Foyston, both Portland beer legends. Much was Fred (who’s in his mid 80′s) telling stories and saying “you’ve got to be kidding me” just about every sentence. It was a very entertaining session and I walked away thinking I’d love to sit down with both of those guys over some beers. They have years of industry knowledge and seem like a couple of great guys.

The last session was titled “How To Brew On Your Stove Top (While Blogging On Your Laptop)” which was presented by the co-founders of Brooklyn Brew Shop. It was a humorous and basic look at home brewing, but definitely got my wheels turning. They talked about random styles of beer they have created ranging from a Peanut Butter Porter to beer made with just about anything you could think of.

After the sessions were over we all boarded a bus and took off to Goschie Farms, which is a family owned hop farm in Oregon. The bus ride should have been about 45 minutes long, but due to some unusual Portland traffic, I think it took over 2 and a half hours. Usually I’d be mad about traffic but there were breweries on the bus who started pouring. There were two buses and on ours we had:

• Black Saison from Breakside Brewing (not sure if that was the official name but it was pretty awesome)
• Black Sheep IPA from Lucky Lab Brewing (a black IPA)
• Galactic Imperial Red Ale from Hopworks Urban Brewery (I think my favorite, so good)
• Chatoe Rogue First Growth Single Malt Ale from Rogue (probably a good beer on it’s own, but didn’t stack up against the others in my opinion)
• The Stoic from Deschuttes (definitely a great beer)

As you can see it was a great ride. Once we got there we got to tour the farm which consisted of about 400 acres of hops, with some grown organically. Their facility takes the beautiful hops from harvest to a bundle. I’ve lived in the northwest my whole life and that was the first time I’ve visited a hop farm and enjoyed every minute of it. They served us some good German dinner and even hop brownies (with a ton of beers..too many I don’t remember all that I tried) and sent us on our way (with even more beer).

I had to wake up early to catch my flight so I missed the night of many bottles afterwards which consisted of more beer samples that bloggers brought from all over the country. I’m sure those that attended had a great time.

Overall the conference was definitely a great time, even if I missed a good majority of it. It your a beer blogger of any size, definitely try to make it out to one. If you’re not a blogger, make sure to support and encourage the beer bloggers in your life.

Next week, May 16-22, people from all over the country will be celebrating American Craft Beer Week.  In fact there are official events being hosted in all 50 states for the very first time (very cool). The event was designed to honor the more than 1700 craft breweries currently operating in the U.S.

“There’s no doubt about it—nationally, appreciation for craft brewing has reached new heights of popularity, with celebrations in all 50 states, American Craft Beer Week has truly earned the title ‘Mother of All Beer Weeks’.” - Julia Herz, a spokesperson for the Brewers Association.

To find a celebration near you, visit the American Craft Beer Week calendar.

Support your local craft breweries!

Where will you be celebrating craft beer week?

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Jason Jewett. Jason is a 27 year old regular guy in Denver, CO who happens to be a media, beer, books and politics addict. He likes long walks on the beach, a quiet sunset, and stouts that you have to chew to swallow.

I saw a guy dressed as Captain America. I saw a group of men and women dressed as monks. I saw a few beer wenches, I saw walking hot dogs, I saw a group of girls dressed like hooters waitresses, and I saw a group of guys in velvet track suits with wigs, headbands and wristbands. I know what you’re thinking, “That sounds like the best Tea Party Convention ever!.” Oh, my sweet sweet friend – it was the Great American Beer Festival!

It’s 29th iteration, and 10th in its current location at the Denver Convention Center, the Great American Beer Festival, or GABF, as it’s more colloquially referred to, has expanded since it’s first ever appearance at the Harvest House Hotel in Boulder, CO in 1982. The 2010 GABF featured more than 2,200 beers from 450+ breweries across the country, just waiting to fix that unfortunate condition known as “sobriety” for an estimated 49,000 attendees.

I’d been before, with the sole purpose of sampling as many fine beers as I could. I’d been before with the intent to attack a particular style or region as well, but I decided this year that I’d try my hand at the GABF from the other side of the table: Volunteering for the Brew Crew, the folks who pour the beer! Volunteering is easy, it’s satisfying, it’s charitable, and you get some free stuff. But best of all, you get plenty of breaks to walk around and try beer.

Taking public transportation downtown, I encountered more than a few people assembling their pretzel necklaces during the trip. Some went above and beyond, to create a bit of an appetizer sampler necklace, including string cheese, slim jims, and a little baggie with wheat thins. Seems like one would need a sherpa to lug around that much snackfood, but having experienced the GABF with little to no food in the gullet, understand the necessity of being your own food truck.

Volunteering at GABF

Arriving at the Convention Center I hurried through volunteer check-in as quickly as possible, wanting to stake out a great spot, and a great beer to pour all night. Instead, I found a Coors table. A friend convinced me to join him there, and I thought, why not — we’re each going to disappear for a half hour at a time to drink, so it’s best to have someone that I trust to come back and cover for me when it’s my turn.

Pouring for MillerCoors wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds, as my pitchers were full of their pre-prohibition lager Batch19. A hoppy nose, but a balanced malt character to finish it off made it better than the average Coors. Outside of what’s made by AC Golden (Batch19 is being made & marketed under MillerCoors new craft brew arm called 10th and Blake Beer Company) Batch19 is probably the best beer from MillerCoors I’ve ever had (excepting Leinenkugels of course.)

Night two was a great night for Odell Brewing, a local craft brewery out of Fort Collins, CO. Distributing only in a nine state region throughout the Rocky Mountains & Midwest, the majority of America hasn’t had the beergasmic pleasure of Odell and their multitudes of hoppy heaven. With 7 beers on tap that night, a Friday, it was a hectic evening. Lots of pouring, lots of explaining the beer, and lots of…pouring one for me! Three of their brews stood out, a Bourbon Barrel Stout. It’s a stout that’s aged in Makers Mark barrels for several months to help impart the flavor. A classic sweet stout, with just that little hint of smokiness and sugar that comes from a great whiskey. Another was Woodcut #4, a regular offering (each edition is different) #4 was a double-marzen style lager, that’s aged in hand coopered virgin American Oak barrels for 6 months. It’s sweet, spicy, has a great malt bite right in the middle of the body. And at over 10% ABV it’s exactly the kind of thing I want to warm me up on a fall or winter day. Their third was another special edition called Deconstruction. It’s a special blend of three pilot beers and a production beer, with the pilots all barrel aged (in oak, burbon, and wine barrels) to a different degree, then combined at differing ratios to complete this Belgian style sour. An inspired flavor, slightly fruity, slighty sweet, but easy to drink and something I’d prefer to take via IV than from a glass, Deconstruction was the highlight of my night with Odell Brewing.

For my third pouring shift I attended the afternoon session for Brewers Association members “only.” While more people at this session definitely knew the difference between an IPA and an ESB, there were still a fair number of the “Oh awesome! Schlitz!” crowd. Undeterred, I pressed on. I was back at Batch19 due to the brand manager’s request. Apparently I was one of the few able to pour beer and talk to people without tripping and falling, starting a fire, and running the convention center into an iceberg. To be honest, I was appreciative and glad for the opportunity to pour a second time for what turned out to be a pretty decent beer. It was an uneventful shift, with more beers sipped, more sights seen, but my head wasn’t in it. I needed to tell my diary all about it.

After a long Saturday afternoon, riding the train home, I got to reflect on three 4-hour shifts of pouring beer, and while it had some moments: it was full of drunk people, cute girls (Don’t let my girlfriend read this, but let’s face it, it’s a target-rich environment,) and fun costumes, but the real star of the show was the incredible amount of beers.

Sampling Beer at GABF

During breaks I of course got the opportunity to wander & sample. As I said before, on previous occasions I had plotted a course around the convention center looking for particular styles, or with a pen and pad stalked breweries I’d heard about word of mouth, or went region by region to sample brews from places I’d never been to. This time I decided that with only quick 20 minute laps available to me, I’d simply look for the craziest sounding brew I could find. Why not?

A Jalapeno Cream Ale started me off, from Wasatch Brewing. With a nose like a breath full of salsa, it was definitely spicy, though a kind of spicy that felt like it floated just off the top of my tongue. I talked with the head brewer for Wasatch and he was quite proud of the way it finished just like a cream ale. I had to disagree, and asked for some tortilla chips. We didn’t see eye to eye.

In another area I found the Smoke Stack Lager from Maui brewing company. According to their site on the interwebs the Smoke Stack Lager gets its smokey flavor from the addition of a special malt. Special is definitely one word to describe it, but I’d go more with “awful.” I’ve never licked the inside of a fire ring after camping or anything, but I’m fairly certain they did then bottled it.

At this point I was beginning to question the wisdom, and potential sado-masochism of seeking out the weirdest beers I could find. I deigned to stop in at Blue Moon for the refreshing taste of their summer brew, Honey Moon to refresh me, and perhaps reinvigorate me. I was stopped in my tracks, though, as I saw their sign for a peanut butter beer. Huzzah! Something that sounds palatable, let us continue to freaky-beer-quest. I expected something Jiff, maybe Skippy, with a hint of Smuckers perhaps. Not even close. With a very slick and heavy mouthfeel it tasted more like old peanut shells, with nary the refreshing bite I expected from a blonde.

Appropriately soured, I moved on. And while appropriately soured I appropriately found a sour. Stopping by New Belgium brewery, the famous makers of Fat Tire (I live in Colorado, I guess I gravitate towards CO Brews). I tried Eric’s Ale, which ended up winning a Silver Medal in the American Style Sour Ale this year. I can only presume that the awards are given out for the most terrible, puckering beers, as I found yet another weird sounding beer that I would do well to never drink again. Discouraged I wandered, seeking something to turn my frown upside down and make me feel better about my quest for quirky combinations.

I sipped a plethora of beers that tasted ungodly, a few that were surprising (bacon beer, who knew?) and many that faded into obscurity. Once or twice I tried an Amber or a Porter or a Double IPA just because there were literally thousands of beers, and I’d be missing out if I didn’t sample as much as I could. But soon enough I came upon what some are considering to be the new Dogfish Head (Charlie “JesusBrew” Papazian himself tweeted that this was so) Short’s Brewing, from Bellaire, MI. Due to Charlie’s tweet the line was no fewer than 75 people deep. I put on my best Mission Impossible face, and used my volunteer status to simply walk behind the tables like I was serving beer there, and walked up to the people at Short’s. I asked them for a quick sample of…shit…I have no idea what they’re serving! “Something good!” I said. “How about the Key Lime Pie?” the gent asked. Key lime….pie? Could this be? What I’ve been searching for? I thrust my cup under his pitcher and he poured. I swirled, I sipped, the angels sung. Well, not really. But it was pretty tasty. The beer that won gold for Best Experimental Beer in 2010 tasted just like Key Lime Pie. A nice dark color, if a beer could taste fluffy, this one did. Clean, smooth, drinkable with a delicious bite of lime but full of sweetness, no wonder this beer won.

I felt vindicated, I felt victorious, I felt drunk. After trying somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 beers throughout the festival during breaks from my wonderful volunteering shifts I felt content. My weird beer mission, the one real thing I wanted to accomplish this year, was complete.

The GABF is such that no matter how prepared you are (many attend with notebooks and pens and schedules) it will be overwhelming. Some lines will be short, some lines will be long. There will be breweries you’re dying to try and never get to go. There will be fantastic beers you try that no matter how hard you try you’ll forget what they were and who made them. For anyone that’s been there, they know — the GABF is a wild ride, but one of the best ways you can spend four hours. If you get the chance, come to Denver, CO for the experience, because the Great American Festival truly is the most incredible showcase of zymurgic talent, success, experimentation, creativity and skill you’ll ever experience.

This post is (mostly) unrelated to beer, except that I’ll “check in” at beer-related venues and beer-related events as much as possible. That and I like to build a community among the BlogAboutBeer.com readers as much as possible, too. Therefore, I signed up for foursquare.com a few days ago and added their BlackBerry application so that I can “check in” on the go. If you use Foursquare yourself, please become my friend @livingstonmedia (the same name as my Twitter handle).

If you’re unfamiliar with Foursquare, it is a web and mobile application that allows registered users to connect with friends and update their current locations. Points and “badges” are then awarded for “checking in” at venues (such as bars, restaurants, stores, ballgames, etc.). Users can also choose to have their Twitter and/or their Facebook accounts updated by Foursquare when they check in somewhere. If you visit a venue more than anyone else in the Foursquare system, you are crowned the “mayor” of that location and your mayorship is shown off on your profile.

Possibly the neatest behind-the-scenes thing about Foursquare however is the fact that the application can notify the owners of companies/bars/what-have-you when members are visiting their establishment and many companies have begun to offer discounts when users check-in, or special “mayor privledges”, etc. It’d be great to see some more beer-themed venues offering such discounts. Maybe $1 off drafts, for instance?

Registration for the 2010 Trails To Ale 10k road race along the oceanfront here in beautiful Portland, Maine opens tomorrow, Saturday March 27th. The Portland Trails race, which is set to take place on Sunday, September 19, 2010, is a full 10k road race along the Eastern Prom trail and around Back Bay, ending at the Portland Company on outer Fore Street in the East End.

But what makes this event both fun and unique — more so than any old road race — is that the course ends at a warehouse full of Portland Pie pizza, Whole Foods Market snacks and lots and lots of Shipyard beer (hence the name, Trails to Ale). Not only have I recently begun to run a bit myself (and am participating in my first 5k this Sunday), but I really enjoy unique events like this one which make great use of beer-as-reward.  Oh, and there will also be post-race massages provided AND the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad will provide free train rides from the finish line at East End Beach to the after-party at the Portland Company; pretty freakin’ cool.

Registration for the Portland Trails 2010 Trails to Ale 10k begins online tomorrow morning at 9:00am at active.com/running/portland-me/portland-trails-10k-trail-to-ale-2010, and the first 400 registrants receive a free technical fabric race teeshirt from Mizuno. However, last year the race had more than 1000 runners participate, so be sure and sign up early. All proceeds, I believe, go to help Portland Trails. See you on the race track!

The concept of trading hard-to-find beers among fans has been around for a long time and chances are that if you’re a self-proclaimed “beer geek” you’ve either traded beer yourself or have friends who do. I first wrote about (well to be fair, Josh @ brewsandbooks.com wrote a guest post and I published it) the phenomenon in October of last year here — but the tradition of beer trading goes much beyond that — and its popularity has only increased with the burgeoning trend of special beer release days, such as Kate Day at the Portsmouth Brewery, Dark Lord Day from Three Floyds, the release of Sexual Chocolate from Foothills, Vagabond from Allagash; the list goes on, across the country.

The results of a disc golf themed "beer-it-forward" trade conducted by Russ from TwinBeer.com

So it’s interesting to see the trend getting some media attention outside of the beer world. The large food & drink themed site, Chow.com, recently wrote a piece on the rising popularity of beer trading (please ignore the gross inaccuracies about Kate Day in the opening paragraph; no one ‘reserved bottles the day before’) with instructions on how to trade (or how people get away with it currently, since it is technically illegal) and a list of some of the more sought-after beers people are looking to trade for on the popular beer forum, BeerAdvocate.

Check out the piece for yourself; who knows what you’d be able to snag for that bottle of Black Tuesday from The Bruery you’ve been stashing away. Do any of the readers out there have any experience with beer trading? Please share (if you are willing & able) in the comment section!

Tickets went on sale yesterday for the 3rd annual American Craft Beer Festival. Sponsored by BeerAdvocate and Harpoon Brewery, the American Craft Beer Fest features over 325 craft beers from over 80 American brewers. The festival is held at the Seaport World Trader Center on the waterfront in Boston, Massachusetts. The ACBF is the largest annual craft beer festival on the east coast.

This year’s event will take place over two days, June 18th and 19th; tickets are $40 a piece (plus service charges) and unlike many beer festivals — including all those here in Maine — include unlimited 2 ounce pours (no drink tickets required). Be sure and get your tickets early, however, as all sessions of the ACBF will undoubtedly sell out. For more information, visit beeradvocate.com/acbf/

Thanks to a ticket hookup from my friend Ally over at WhereMaineEats.com (under construction), I was able to attend the Maine Bartenders Bash this past Monday night (a helluva way to end a day which began with a 4am trip to Kate Day…). I’m not usually one for vodka but I must admit that nearly all of the cocktails served at the “bash” (more of a cocktail tasting than a bash, I have to admit. Still a very good time but “bash” implies flair, and there wasn’t any) were mighty tasty. One particular drink though really hit home for me, probably needless to say.

Photo by Michael Barriault of PortlandTown

“The Native” from Vignola was created by Scott Doherty and features the White and Black ales of Allagash Brewing Co, blended with a number of spices, boiled and mixed with Maine’s own Cold River Vodka. If you’re feeling adventurous enough to try making it yourself, the recipe is below. I told Scott at the time that I think “The Native” would be fantastic served hot on a cold New England evening. While it didn’t win the overall best cocktail of the evening, it was the best drink at The Bartenders Bash in my book.

The Native:

~1 1/2 oz Cold River Vodka
~6 oz Four Spice Black & White Agave syrup:

Agave Syrup:

1 pint Allagash White
1pint Allagash Black
8 oz water
8 oz Agave Nectar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp whole white peppercorns
1 star anise pod
1/2 tsp whole clove
1/4 piece of ginger

Bring water, cinnamon stick, whole white peppercorns, star anise pod, whole clove, and ginger to a boil. Then add agave nectar and return to a boil. Remove from heat and cool. Cover and refrigerate over night, strain and cover. Bring 1 pint of Allagash White and 1 pint of Allagash Black to a boil. Add 3 tablespoons of agave syrup and 1/2 cup sugar. Return to a boil and reduce liquid by half. Pour agave syrup and vodka into a shaker, add ice, and shake vigorously. Strain into pilsner glass. Enjoy!

I’m just back from a successful, if not wet and chilly, Kate The Great Day at the Portsmouth Brewery in beautiful Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And what a wild & crazy morning it was. Josh Christie (of BrewsAndBooks.com fame), a few mutual cohorts and I piled into the car this morning around 3:50am and departed from Portland en route to Portsmouth for The Portsmouth Brewery’s Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout – the beer which is considered by many to be the best beer in America (and is towards the top of just about every list for sure).

The bottle "lines" at about 8:40am

If you’re unfamiliar with the way “Kate Day” (as it’s called) works, there are a total of 900 bottles of the infamous Russian Imperial Stout for sale one morning each year. The first 450 people in line get a single page from a page-a-day calendar (well, calendar and a half). When the pages are all handed out, the beer is essentially gone. Folks then mill around downtown Portsmouth in search of warmth and breakfast until they start letting people in to pick up their bottles (limit 2 per person; $10 a bottle) in order of month beginning at 9:00am.

Our carload arrived right around 4:45am and got December 28-30 of the first year. By 5:25 all of the 450 pages were gone. Reports said that folks began lining up at 1:00am last night when the bar closed and stood in line overnight until they began handing out pages at 4:30 this morning (so all the bottles were spoken for in less than an hour).

If you miss out on a calendar page and aren’t able to pick up a bottle, not all hope is lost. The Portsmouth Brewery opened for lunch at 11:30am and promised to have a couple of kegs of Kate on tap. However, when we left with our bottles at 9:30, the lunch line was already down the street and around the corner, two hours before they opened. Our rough estimate was that if we had gotten in line at that exact moment, we might have been eating by 3 o’clock. And the brewery was sure to kick all of their Kate kegs before the day is out. Pure insanity.

Look at all those bags of Kate The Great!

However, if you’re within striking distance of Portsmouth, Kate Day is a definite don’t-miss, at least once in your drinking career. I do wish they would host the event on a slightly warmer day than March 1st, but I guess standing outside in the cold and the rain adds a bit to the mystique.

Did you make it down this morning? What’d you think? And if not, I’ll see you there next year (BlogAboutBeer.com Kate Day Party Bus anyone?). Oh, and I won’t be trading either bottle so don’t waste your time. Sorry!