The Porter Method

Part 6 of a series of posts about the GABF. Click to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

After an incredible Friday, we arose for our last full day in Denver. We had tickets for the Saturday Members-Only session at the GABF which ran from 12:30pm-4:30pm. We figured a bit of grease might be a good way to start the day (though I’m sure the grease from the previous night’s Pete’s Kitchen run was still there). We decided to drop by a place we had seen on our daily walks through the city, Pete’s Cafe (or is it called Pete’s Steak House, there seems to be some confusion as to its name). This was a tiny little old school diner on Colfax. We had some good old fashioned breakfast food (eggs, sausage, and hash browns) that would get us through the upcoming tasting session.

Because we bought tickets to the Saturday session, we were given VIP entrance tickets to the Thursday session. Since this was the Saturday members-only session everyone was VIP. That meant we all had the privilege of standing in the same line outside. We unfortunately did not arrive very early (about 10 minutes early) and were treated to a line that wrapped almost entirely around the convention center. And unfortunately for us we followed the line around to the right instead of going left around the convention center (which would have saved us a ton of walking, it must have taken 5 minutes to find the end of the line). With the incredibly long line, it took us 30 minutes to actually get into the tasting session.

Finally at 1pm we made it into the Saturday tasting session. The big thing we wanted to try on Saturday was Sam Adams Utopias which would not be available till after the awards were handed out. Since we had a couple hours before we could queue up for the Utopias, we began another round of tasting. We tried to explore the smaller, unknown breweries and beers that we did not hit on Thursday.

For this tasting session, Rob donned the USA Jaguars gear that I had brought for him from Alabama. This prompted another Alabama encounter from one of the volunteers at the event. She was from Grand Bay but apparently had been gone a long time since she didn’t know what college South Alabama was (it was started in 1964!!).

We saw the X-Communicated Mormon Drinking Team:

The event was not limited to only microbrews. Coors had a cool booth that would shoot snow out from the mountains. They also had a Pre-Pro (Pre-Prohibition) beer that was quite nice.

Blue Moon was there (owned by Coors) and brought a Peanut Butter Ale that was out of this world. The peanut flavor was so incredible I can’t believe they don’t sell this one year around. It is apparently only made for the GABF.

I snapped pics of various breweries that I must have been impressed with though it is hard to make out the brewery information from these high quality iPhone pics I took.

Those were Beaver St. Brewery, Chicago Brewing Company (which is in Las Vegas), and Bison Brewing respectively.

After much tasting, we finally were ready to line up and await the tapping of the Sam Adams Utopias. Utopias has the distinction of being the strongest beer every created. It comes in at around 27% alcohol by volume and sells for $120 for a small 20 ounce or so bottle. They actually had to engineer yeast that could survive at such concentrated alcohol levels in order to create this beer. They only brew it every couple of years and do a limited release of a set number of bottles. Of course even with our law change, this is still not going to be available in Alabama. While we were waiting in line, we did see the creator of Sam Adams, Jim Koch, cruise through their booth. We had a really good spot in line so, though the wait was kind of long, we didn’t want to move and lose our spot. It also didn’t hurt that while we were standing there, we got to continually sample the other beers in their lineup (the Imperial Stout is incredible).

Finally the Utopias was tapped and furious pouring began. The normal GABF tasting sample is 1 ounce, but this high-octane brew was only offered as a 1/2 ounce sample.

Once we had our sample, we moved off to the side so we could truly savor the experience. The color of this beer was incredible. It had an amazing aroma with vanilla and caramel notes. We immortalized the moment with a pic of our samples before tasting them.

The Utopias was amazing. It if course tasted more like a liquor with no discernible carbonation. The vanilla and caramel flavor was very apparent and oh so wonderful. It is an expensive, rare and unique beer, but I could see having one of these around for special occasions. It is not available where I can purchase it (and it always sells out) but I really enjoyed this beer. Kudos Sam Adams for making something very special!

At long last we had to say goodbye to our GABF experience. 4:30pm came around it all had to come to an end. We enjoyed our time there and highly recommend attending if you like beer.

After leaving we had a few hours to kill before our next event, so we did some souvenir shopping at the 16th Street Mall. I picked up some gifts for the girlfriend, Casey, (since she was very clear about the fact that no gifts equals no ride home from the airport), and then headed back over to Katie Mullen’s to salute Arthur Guinness once more.

The next item on our agenda was the Flying Dog Beer Dinner at 6:30pm over at Brauns Bar and Grill. This would be a 5 course gourmet dinner with different beer pairings from the Flying Dog lineup.

We had and appetizer of shredded German pot roast set on mini bread topped with pan gravy and seared red cabbage, paired with Horn Dog Barley Wine:

Spinach salad tossed with roasted pear vinaigrette, candied walnuts and red onion, paired with Kerberos Tripel:

Golden mushroom soup finished with sharp cheddar cheese and a good splash of beer, paired with Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale:

Beer mustard chicken and bangers, sauteed carrots and green beans buttered demi spetzel paired with Double Dog Double Pale Ale:

Chocolate Porter Fondue served with sour cream pound cake and sweet beer bread paired with Gonzo Imperial Porter:

End to end this beer dinner was amazing. The food was incredible. The company was great. One of our dining companions at our table, David, was an avid homebrewer so I got to pick his brain about the subject. He even gave me his contact info in case I had any questions if I decided to give brewing a try. Of course the big surprise of the night was when the Flying Dog folks were doing their final announcements about the dinner and asked where Doug Porter was. They somehow had found out that it was my birthday and had the whole place sing me Happy Birthday. Thanks Rob for being sneaky and making that happen! I had no clue he had arranged that. What a great dinner this turned out to be!

After dinner we made our way back to our hotel. Now I was expecting to head straight to bed since it was around 11pm and I had to be up at 6:30am to catch my shuttle to the airport. Rob had a flight out at 7pm the next evening so he had other ideas. He convinced me to head over to the Irish Snug for a nightcap. It turned out that there was a fellow playing Irish diddies and a great crowd participating in the sing-a-longs which turned out to be very fun. The musician that night was Brian Clancy. He has a live CD available online that really captures the atmosphere we got to experience that night.

While there we met a group of ladies that were celebrating their friend’s birthday come midnight that night. Since it was already my birthday, we were invited to join their group for the birthday festivities. They were a fun group. One of the gals works for Live Nation so we got to talk bands and music. Turns out that one of her friends, Todd Roeth, photograpphed my favorite musician Butch Walker when he was in town. Todd’s pictures of bands are amazing. Check out his site here. She was also the one that clued us into the fact that the Ramada on Colfax is referred to as the RockMada. Apparently it is close to the clubs and cheap, so all of the bands end up staying there. And sure enough later that night as we got back to the hotel, there was a band unloading their van to check in.

Somehow this group convinced us to leave the Irish Snug and head over to RockBar (Rockbar’s Myspace). This place was sort of like an old-school dark, hot dance club. I remember lots of early nineties hip-hop and rap being played and cold cans of PBR being provided by Rob. Definitely an interesting place. After RockBar winded down, we made our third and final trip over to Pete’s Kitchen for late night grub (and of course I had the Gyros Breakfast Sandwich again). If we had stayed in town a few more days, they probably would have named a booth after us since we just kept coming back night after night. Amazing food at that place and a great time with our new Denver friends. Thanks for making us feel like locals!

At long last (and one of glass of water later accidentally spilled by me into Rob’s lap) we headed back to the RockMada to bring an end to the Denver fun. When it was all said and done it was 3:30am when we finally went to sleep.

6:30am came awfully early, but somehow I managed to get up, get packed and dressed, and make it to my airport shuttle (Rob, of course, didn’t even hear me leave). The trip back to Mobile was very uneventful and unusually pleasant (probably mainly because I was in a daze thanks to only getting 3 hours of sleep).

The GABF trip turned out to be an incredible experience that I highly recommend. Rob and I had a blast. Here is my full picture gallery from the trip. So let’s wrap up with the final tally.

6 days, 5 nights, 1 brews cruise, 4 brewery tours, 2 GABF tasting sessions, 1 beer dinner, 1 Rockies game, ~250 GABF beers sampled, 0.5 ounces of Utopias, 4 airline flights, 14 days before I wanted to drink any beer after I got back to Mobile, lots of new Denver friends, and a grand total of 7,814 words across 6 blog entries detailing the trip.

Thanks GABF! Thanks Denver! Thanks Rob! Cheers to all!

Part 5 of a series of posts about the GABF. Click to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

Friday was another fun filled day. Our plan was to meet Rob’s friend Melissa and her gang at 11:30 down at the unofficial GABF headquarters, the Falling Rock Tap House. Falling Rock had plans to tap a series of special kegs throughout the day, and we wanted to be a part of it. The first keg that gets tapped at noon is the Sierra Nevada Kill-A-Keg. The goal is to empty a Sierra Nevada keg (get it poured into glasses and get them off to tables) as fast as possible. The previous year the time to empty it was 15 minutes and 4 seconds.

To get down to Falling Rock, which is located near the baseball stadium, Rob and I had a nice 2 mile morning walk from the Ramada/RockMada down to the Tap House. We got there around 11 and were treated to a nice inside table. After a couple of warm-up brews (they don’t have a beer list online, so I can’t recall what we had) and some lunch, high noon had finally arrived. As everyone gathered around the bar for the tappeagerly awaiting the frothy goodness, you could feel the energy all around you. Finally the bell rang out and the proprietor went to work pouring as fast as possible. It was a whirlwind of amber nectar and foam as he filled glass after glass. When the dust cleared and the last bit of liquid poured forth from the keg, the timer was stopped and we all gasped at the new record of 12 minutes. Congrats Falling Rock! That was some serious pouring. Of course that really sets the bar high for next year.

As part of the keg tapping, Sierra Nevada brought some wonderful souvenir pint glasses to distribute. Unfortunately our waiter was not able to snag any of them for us before they ran out but that would be rectified before the day was over. We enjoyed our wonderful speed-poured noon Sierra Nevada brew and awaited the next keg tapping.

At 12:30pm they tapped a keg of Sierra Nevada Estate Ale. This beer was brewed with hops and barley grown on the Sierra Nevada brewery’s estate. This was a wonderful beer. Rob fell hard for this beer. I believe he was ready to give up all other beers and swear his allegiance to this one. Unfortunately it was a special edition and not available year around. The Estate Ale was followed up with a wet-hopped Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale that I really enjoyed though it could not sway Rob from his new found devotion to the Estate Ale.

Somewhere in here the fine owner of Brasserie La Chouffe from Belgium handed out some nice red La Chouffe elf hats to us. Once we had donned our hats, we went out front to be part of a big group picture for the brewery.

We came back to our table and Rob began to notice that many of the people that had received the wonderful souvenir Sierra Nevada pint glasses had decided not to take them with them when they left. He then became a man on a mission to get everyone at our table a souvenir glass. And succeed at his mission he did. All 6 of us ended up with a nice souvenir glass (which Melissa kindly enough said she would take by our hotel since we had plans later and couldn’t carry them around).

At 2pm the next keg was a cask ale. This turned out to be the wonderful Left Hand/Terrapin Brewing Depth Charge Espresso Milk Stout that we had during the Brews Cruise on Wednesday. I loved this beer so I was very pleased to get to try it again (in a bigger glass no less).

Come 3pm we had to say goodbye to our wonderful Falling Rock Tap House because we had other plans to attend to. Thanks for the good times Falling Rock!

Why would we willingly leave such a fun place you may ask? Well we had a party to go to. The Flying Dog Brewery was throwing their F.B.A.G (Flying Dog Brats & Gonzo) party. Free beer, brats, and live music. How could we turn that down? Plus this party was a just a short walk from the Falling Rock. On our way we had to pass by the baseball stadium, so we thought we might try to get some scalped tickets for the sold out Friday night game. The first scalper we ran into balked at my price range when I said cheap, but as I was halfway across the street another scalper started yelling at me, “I got cheap, I got cheap!”. I went back over and picked up some deep right field tickets for $20/each ($10 face value). I couldn’t complain because it was a sold out game. Tickets scored, we kept on walking till we found the party (of course how could it be a party till we showed up?).

This was a really nice setup. Brats, chips, and other assorted finger foods. Free beer from the entire Flying Dog lineup, and live music. Here is a great review of the Flying Dog Brats and Gonzo party from another attendee. And that guy even managed to catch me in one of his FBAG pictures on Flickr. Do you see me? I’m the guy with the beer :-). Seriously though, I am in the first picture of his set. There is a sliver of Rob and Melissa and her friend as well. They all look really enthralled about whatever I’m going on about in that pic. Must have been some good conversation I was spewing. Either that or they are just being polite.

The musical entertainment was provided by Rob Drabkin. He is a very talented artist, and he has the kind of awesome hair that I dream about having. If I can’t have Elvis’s hair, I want Rob Drabkin’s. Check out his music online.

After getting our Gonzo on for a couple of hours, it was time for Rob and I to head over to the baseball game and see what $20 in scalped tickets gets us.

The right-field upper deck. That is what it gets you. This game was a very exciting one though. Even from the upper deck. The Rockies were up 1-0 over the Cardinals most of the game. St. Louis tied it up in the 7th and then in the bottom of the ninth, the Rockies won on a sacrifice fly (USA Today Game Recap). Go Rockies! Not only did we get to see the hometown team win, but since it was Friday night, it was a fireworks game. We were treated to an incredible 20 minute fireworks show.

After the game we caught the bus back towards the hotel. We had taken the bus a couple of times, but this Friday evening it was a bit more interesting than usual. There were guys panhandling from on the bus to everyone that would get on board. I can’t believe the bus driver allowed this. Especially because any time someone wouldn’t give the panhandlers any money they went into a rant about 400 years of oppression, slave trade, Thomas Jefferson, etc, etc. Rob decided we were done with Denver public transportation after this little adventure. Come on Denver, that is ridiculous. Panhandlers should be tossed onto the street if they harass passengers.

After getting off near our hotel, we decided why not make another run to the wonderful late night 24 hour diner of Pete’s Kitchen. Another Pita Breakfast Sandwich later, we were on our way back to the Ramada/RockMada.

Upon arriving back at the hotel and picking up our souvenir glasses from the front desk that Melissa had dropped by, we were pleasantly surprised to find that she had given me an early birthday gift (the next day was my birthday, of course it was after midnight, so it really was my birthday then). She gave us a bottle of champagne. So what were we to do after a long day of the Falling Rock Tap House, the Brats and Gonzo party, the baseball game, and Pete’s Kitchen. Well we cracked open the champagne and had a birthday drink. Thanks Melissa! It was a blast hanging out with you and your friends.

Finally we wound down and called it a night. We had one last full day in Denver on Saturday and we were determined to make the most of it.

Click to read Part 6.