The Porter Method

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

Thursday was the first day of the actual GABF proper. Of the four sessions being held, we were attending the Thursday night session and the Saturday afternoon members-only session (for members of the American Homebrewers Association). In preparation for the beer tasting, we figured we should get a nice filling lunch (plus I was still starving from the night before). Going on a stroll from our hotel and using Yelp on the iPhone, we arrived at Steuben’s. Steuben’s had an amazing art deco vibe inside and a wonderful patio area for us to relax and enjoy a bit of Denver sun.

I ended up selecting the Cuban Sandwich with a side of green beans and macaroni and cheese. It was an incredible meal. I highly recommend you check them out if you are in the area.

After lunch we did a bit of Geocaching using one of Rob’s iPhone apps. This was a first for me. Unfortunately it seemed like every location that we arrived at had homeless folks hanging out staring at us so we felt a bit weird about searching for the caches. We did end up finding one microcache at a park. Not too thrilling but it was a good way for us to see parts of the city we may not have traversed otherwise. Also an important safety tip when visiting Denver, it is closer to the sun so bring your sunscreen.

While walking the neighborhoods we swung by some convenience stores in search of dental floss and pretzels. A pro tip that I learned from the Free The Hops forums was to build a pretzel necklace for the GABF to give you something to munch on to cleanse the palate between beer tastings and to give you something to fill the stomach during the event. Dental floss is key because it won’t snag on the pretzels like normal string will. Fishing line would work as well. We purchased our supplies and returned to the hotel to begin assembly. Rob used the thread the needle technique while I took a pen, aligned the floss with it and then queued up 10-15 pretzels onto it before sliding them down the floss.

After the necklaces rolled off the assembly line, we headed downtown to meet up with Rob’s friend Melissa at the Chili’s on 16th St. for some more pre-GABF foodage. We figured a little grease would go a long way to helping us get through 4.5 hours of beer tasting in 1 ounce increments. After eating some sandwiches and drinking copious amounts of tea (unsweet, of course, since sweet tea is a Southern invention), off we went to the Convention Center.

Since we were attending the members-only session on Saturday, we were given VIP entrance tickets for the Thursday session. This really just meant that we got to wait in line inside the convention center versus outside in the sun. At 5:30pm the sound of bagpipes rang out through the convention center signaling the start of the Great American Beer Festival. We began to move slowly towards the entrance, shuffling ever forward, getting closer and closer, and finally we were in.

As Rob and I looked around at all of the tables and booths and took in the awe of 2,100 beers ready for the tasting, all of our planning finally came to fruition. We had been planning this moment for about 3 months, so what did we do? We just stood there. We were so overwhelmed by all of the choices that we didn’t know where to go or what to try first. Finally we got over being shell-shocked and dove right in trying the closest thing we saw. Once that was out of the way we could think more clearly. We headed over to the Dogfish Head booth (one of my favorite breweries even though they aren’t available in Alabama) and I had the pleasure of having my 1 ounce sample of Palo poured for me by the founder, Sam Calagione. I knew at that point that this was going to be an epic experience. Here is a pic of their booth (sorry about the finger stage right).

We moved through the convention hall hitting the bigger breweries at the ends of the aisles. These had the bigger lines, but we wanted to make sure we got to try their wares. We saw our buddies from Oskar Blues.

The Left Hand Brewery folks (the fellow behind the table on the right was the MC on our Brews Cruise bus).

Of course our Boulder Beer friends (the gal on the right was our tour guide at Boulder Beer for the Brews Cruise).

Hey, Boulder Beer was Colorado’s first microbrew and their birthday was the next day.

We checked out the Alaskan Brewing company tent (Dwyer somehow comes up with a bottle of this stuff every now and then so I had to check them out).

And then we started wandering through the different sections (they were arranged by geographic location and then alphabetically) trying anything that looked interesting (neat name, neat packaging, neat looking people pouring, etc.)

One hilarious thing during the festival was that anytime someone dropped their plastic tasting glass onto the floor a roar would erupt around them and move throughout the entire facility shaming them for such a faux pas. You would think that would get old, but it really never did. Some people went all out with their attire for the event. We saw all kinds of crazy costumes from lederhosen, to St. Pauli girls, to kilts, to even animal costumes. But the big one that everyone seemed to want a photo with was the man in the Pabst Blue Ribbon pajama onesie.

This guy would fit right in on Tuesdays for $1 PBR and free deep-fried bacon night at Wando’s in Madison, WI.

We moved through trying beer after beer, munching pretzels every now and then, and started to realize that 4.5 hours is a really long time. If you were trying to get drunk at this event, you would really have to work at it. The 1 ounce samples, the lines, and the flavor and strength of the beers are inherent limiting factors to becoming intoxicated. One thing that was shocking to both of us was how many bad beers exist out there. I guess it had to be given 2,100 beers. They can’t all be homeruns, but still amazing that some beers are even too bad to consume a whole 1 ounces of the swill. Luckily they had buckets at almost every booth for pouring out any beer you didn’t want to drink (another pro-tip, don’t drink it if you don’t like it, pour and move on).

About 4 hours in, we ran into Rob’s friend Melissa and decide to exit with them and their group of festival-goers. We would be back again on Saturday and there was an important matter we had to attend to.

We had to salute Arthur Guinness on his 250th year anniversary since he signed the lease on his first brewery. (Yes, I know that we left a beer festival to go drink some more beer). We headed over to Katie Mullen’s where the Guinness 250 Anniversary Stout was on draft for $2.50/pint.

What a bargain! Of course when I asked for a Guinness they didn’t pour me the 250 Anniversary Stout the first go around, so I ended up paying around $6/pint. That was corrected in subsequent orders. Really bartender? If you have 2 different Guinness’s and one is $2.50/pint and the other $6, which one do you think I’m talking about? I was probably the only person in the bar the whole night that got the standard Guinness. But other than that it was a great time with some great people.

We outlasted Melissa’s crew and finally decided to make the trip back to the hotel. Of course first we needed some late night grub. We ended up at the most amazing late night 24 hour diner (the first of what would be 3 nights in a row at this place), Pete’s Kitchen on Colfax. Here we ran into another Alabama person. When our waitress asked us “How y’all doing?” we knew she was not a Denver native. Turns out she was Victoria from Montgomery, AL out in Denver for school. Southern people just seem to be drawn to each other like magnets, this made 2 in 2 days. I ordered the Gyros Breakfast Sandwich (scrambled eggs & gyros in pita with hash browns) and it was absolutely incredible (so good that that was what I ordered the next 2 nights as well). If you are hitting late night Denver, you have to add this place to your list to check out.

Finally with our quota of beers sampled and bellies filled we retired to our Ramada for well deserved shut-eye after a busy day.

Click to read Part 5.

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

The Brews Cruise rolled on to our next destination, the Oskar Blues Brewing Company. I was excited to hit Oskar Blues because the founder, Dale Katechis, is originally from Florence, AL. He also was a bit of a trend-setter when he got started. He wanted a quality beer that he could take with him on the river, so he decided to only packages his microbrews in cans. They make brews such as Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chub, and Ten Fidy.

At the Oskar Blues Brewery, lunch was provided for us. It was a nice little barbecue pulled pork setup that really hit the spot. Again we went on a brewery tour of the facility. Theirs was interesting in that the place was built inside what basically was a big warehouse so all of the brewing, fermentation, and bottling takes place in one big room. Again showing that each brewery has their own neat culture, Oskar Blues has a batting cage setup inside of their place. For some reason I didn’t get any pictures from inside this brewery. Maybe something to do with the third straight brewery we had visited with unlimited samples as well as on-the-bus brews during the drives between breweries.

At this point after 3 tours of microbrewery facilities a couple of things were very interesting to me. One was the size of the operations. All of these facilities occupied very small spaces. I guess that is where the micro in microbrew comes from. All of these breweries could easily fit into the footprint a standard restaurant building takes up. Another neat thing was that while each facility had all of the same types of equipment and processes, they each had their own culture and feel. You could tell the employees all take enormous pride in their work, their company, and the unique culture that exists at each facility. I wonder how this compares to the large mega-breweries. Also, not sure if this is a Denver thing, but all of the breweries were very big on recycling everything possible. All glass and paper was recycled, and even the used grains that were left at the end of the brewing process were shipped off to farmers for use as feed for livestock. It was very impressive to see this type of commitment to as green a process as possible.

After the tour, back on the bus we went for the last brewery of the day. We headed over to the Avery Brewing Company. This brewery stood out because it was just sort of right smack in the middle of a strip mall (Google Maps Satellite View). The party bus was cruising through a strip center past insurance companies, dry cleaners, Chinese take-out places, and then all of a sudden, the Avery Brewing Company. Definitely proved that you do not need a lot of space for a microbrewery. I had never heard of the Avery Brewing company but was very pleased with the brews that we had there (Old Jubilation Ale, The Beast, Mephistopheles Stout). I also was introduced to a style of beer that I had read about but never tasted and really couldn’t even fathom. The Sour Beer style (more accurately, the Belgian Sour Ale – read Sour Beer for Beginners). The best way to describe this concoction is to take a perfectly good beer, then add the sour flavor of a CryBaby sour candy. Now for most out there, I’m sure this sounds positively awful, but it actually wasn’t bad. You definitely couldn’t drink 6 of these babies, but one of them was quite nice. Avery had two different sours to taste and I enjoyed them both. When talking about sours with the group, it seemed to delineate along the lines of those that liked the flavor of pickle juice liked sour beers and those that didn’t couldn’t stand sour beers. An interesting experience nonetheless. We decided to forgo the brewery tour at Avery because it was quite crowded and we had a table with our Alabama transplant friends and some comfy chairs.

At long last the joy of the Brews Cruise had to come to an end. We boarded our bus to head back to downtown Denver. I used the ride back to catch a little bit of shut-eye. This of course proved to be too much for Rob to resist, and he proceeded to take pictures of me and send them out to all of our friends with various captions thanks to his trusty iPhone 3GS. Just this past weekend I ran into a friend and was telling them about the GABF and he mentioned he had seen the pictures. I just assumed he was on the distribution list from Rob but he was actually joking (guess he just figured that anyone that visits a beer festival must have a gaggle of incriminating pictures out there…not true in our case).

Upon arriving back at the convention center we decided to hit the hotel for a quick 20 minute nap before trying to meet up with some friends from the Back of the Bus Crew. Unfortunately that 20 minute nap turned into a 4 hour nap leaving us waking up late into the night. We met up with some friends of Rob’s and checked out Sing Sing’s Piano Bar. A nice loud dueling piano type setup.

Now the dueling pianos there weren’t bad per se, but I’ve spent most of my dueling pianos time at Pat O’Brien’s in The Piano Bar down in New Orleans. That is the cream of the crop piano bar, so anything other than that is really just amateur hour. Also, the fact that I had not eaten anything since lunch time caught up with me with a splitting headache and nauseous feeling. I decided to call it an early night, while Rob went and had some late night fun with his Denver peeps.

Click to read Part 4.

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

Wednesday began with us making the brisk 1.3 mile walk from our hotel (the Ramada on Colfax next to the tattoo parlors) to the Denver Convention Center to get on the bus for the Left Hand Brews Cruise (Post from Draft Magazine about the Brews Cruise). The Brews Cruise consisted of tours of 4 breweries (Boulder Beer, Left Hand, Oskar Blues, Avery), breakfast, lunch, t-shirt, tasting glass, discounts on brewery merchandise, and unlimited samples at the breweries all for $55. This was an absolute bargain. It turned out to be one of our favorite things we did while in Denver.

We ended up arriving to the bus right on time, but that meant most of the seats were already filled. Rob and I got the next to last pair of seats towards the back of the bus. This location would turn out to be the best possible place we could have ended up. The Back of the Bus Crew was a fun, rowdy bunch. We settled into our seats and relaxed for the 45 minute ride from downtown Denver to Boulder, CO for our first stop at the Boulder Beer Company.

Boulder Beer is the maker of such wonderful brews as Hazed & Infused and Mojo IPA. Upon arrival we were treated to as many samples as we wanted of their whole lineup of beers as well as a breakfast of wonderful Breakfast Burritos, Chips, and Salsa fixings. I admit that it was a bit hard to get started tasting beers at 9:30am but Rob and I dug down deep and made it happen.

After getting some food and drink, the tour began. Our tour guide rocked. She was full of energy, and you could tell she loved her job. Of course there are not many jobs where you get to grab yourself a beer as part of your day. We got to see in progress brews being…well…brewed (mashed and sparged). We saw the fermentation tanks in the basement, got to munch on some malt and smell the hops. We saw the bottling facility in full swing and met the fine gentleman that bottle the beer.

They even took us into the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, the beer freezer. This is where all of their fine ready to ship brews and kegs hang out until hopping on trucks. I was in such awe I didn’t even get a picture. The amazing thing to me about the brewery was the fact that in such a small facility (it was not a large building) they create, brew, and bottle the beer that I am able to buy here in Mobile, AL. Truly amazing what they do in that facility.

Thanks Boulder Beer for the amazing welcome you gave us. Go buy and drink Boulder Beer! They deserve your support.

So back on the bus we went to begin our 15 mile trip from Boulder, CO to Longmont, CO to visit the Left Hand Brewing Company. This is when the Back of the Bus Crew began to come into full swing. One of the fellows behind us had purchased a 12 pack Boulder Beer sampler and brought it back on the bus to continue the sampling. He popped the top of each beer and passed them up the aisle so everyone could fill their sample glass and keep from being parched on the 25 minute ride to the next brewery. If you ever go on the Brews Cruise, Be That Guy! It was an awesome gesture that started a trend paying it forward the rest of the day from everyone on board. So as we sampled our generously donated beers, we got to know one another. The husband and wife from Texas, the military gals from Chicago, the young drummer formerly of Chicago now relocated to Denver, and the local that showed the bus the Beer-Love with the donated twelver.

We arrived in Longmont at the Left Hand Brewing Company, and it was obvious they had dressed up for us…or at least dressed up in the way that quirky beer-folk dress up. There was the purple tux-coat leprechaun-like outfit, the jeans, sportscoat, plaid shirt, and Left Hand tie Vice President, and even a full on serious suit back in the bottling area. Free samples again awaited with a full draft selection and even 2 casks that had just been tapped.

Here we went in smaller groups on our tours, and our group had the pleasure of being led around by the Vice President of Operations. He was extremely knowledgeable about the brewing process and a very funny guy to boot. As part of this tour I finally saw a real world use for diatomaceous earth (DME). I remember learning about this stuff in 8th grade biology and never saw a first hand use for it. Left Hand uses it for filtration of their beer. We got to see icky cloudy beer go in one side and a much clearer beer come out the other side. Hooray science!

In the brewing portion of the facility, they showed off their Human Computer Interface as they called it

Yes, that is a disco ball adorning the top of the room. If there is a pressure buildup in the system, the computers kick on the disco ball so the brewmaster can be alerted to the problem and fix it before bad things happen. This is a good example of the really neat culture that was apparent at all of the breweries we visited.

We were able to see their bottling operation and learned that Left Hand employs developmentally disabled individuals to handle some of the mundane repetitive tasks such as putting the shipping boxes together. The repetitive nature of the tasks is very comforting to many of the disabled individuals and they are able to work, produce, and be challenged. I applaud Left Hand for this.

During this tour, we met 2 couples formerly from Alabama that had moved to Denver. One from Birmingham and the other from Decatur and proud graduates of Auburn University. People from the South stick together so from then on we were torn between our Back of the Bus Crew and our Alabama transplant friends.

We were also again shown the beer freezer where all of the finished cooled product awaits shipping. The VP of Operations reminded us that this was the place to be if the country ever broke down and anarchy ensued. With that much beer, they would be able to barter their way to any other supplies they might need. A very good point. I will have to keep that in mind and be sure to keep some beer on hand if things start looking bleak.

While others in the group were completing their tours, we continued sampling the Left Hand beers and got to try a cask that had been tapped that very day. It was a partnership brew between Left Hand and the Terrapin Beer Company out of Athens, GA. It was an Espresso Milk Stout called Depth Charge. Here is a review of Depth Charge. It was an amazing beer if you like stouts and coffee. I like both, so it was my lucky day:

Finally we finished up and re-boarded the bus. The couple from Texas paid it forward by bringing a growler of Left Hand Milk Stout on the bus and keeping the trend going. The trend-setter that started the chain going also brought another 12 pack sampler on-board and brews were passed up and down the aisle as we headed to our next destination, the Oskar Blues Brewery.

Here is a picture of the bus crew courtesy of Aly from Left Hand. Thanks Aly!.

See if you can “Where’s Waldo?” me and Rob (Click the pic to enlarge).

Click to read Part 3.

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

Back in May I was cruising the Free The Hops forums as I’m want to do and ran across a posting about the Great American Beer Festival held annually in Denver, CO. Just the name alone sounded intriguing so I decided to do some investigating. As it turns out that festival is listed on all kinds of Man Things To Do Before You Die type lists. It is apparently Beertopia, Beerapallooza, Beerhalla, the Beery Gates, and Beervana all rolled up into one. It seemed that an epic adventure was there just waiting to happen. Once I got adventure approval from my better half I enlisted my buddy West-Coast Rob who is always up for excitement and new experiences. These posts will chronicle our time in Denver for the GABF from Tuesday, September 22, 2009 to Sunday, September 27, 2009.

Tuesday was a travel day for me with nice boring flights from MOB->MEM->DEN. Upon arriving in Denver I got to see first hand the monstrosity that is the Denver International Airport. I remember studying the airport’s baggage system in grad school. It is a case study on how not to run a software project (Article from Scientific American about the project). Calling this airport the Denver Airport seems to be a bit of a stretch. Google says it was about 24 miles from the airport to our hotel. In Mobile if I drive 24 miles, I’m in a different city and I’m almost at the beach. Also, Denver is sorely lacking on adequate affordable transportation from the airport into downtown. Cabs $50, Super Shuttle $20, Hourly Bus $10. Nothing like hopping on Bart in San Francisco or the “El” in Chicago.

Rob and I elected to go with the Super Shuttle van for our transportation to the hotel. Since the airport is so far away, the shuttle driver refused to leave until he had filled every bit of space in our van (he even tried to fill some space that didn’t actually exist, luckily those elderly passengers refused to squeeze in between everyone).

On the ride into town, I was lucky enough to be seated next to two brewers that were in town as judges for the GABF (Great American Beer Festival). One was Brock Wagner from the Saint Arnold Brewing Company in Houston, TX and the other was Chuck Skypeck from the Ghost River Brewing Company and Boscos in Memphis, TN. They were super nice guys and we had a great conversation about how they got started in the business, how things have changed since they began brewing, and what they saw for the future of beermaking. For someone that has been thinking about getting into homebrewing, this was an absolute treat. Thanks guys for the interesting conversation! Poor Rob got stuck up front riding shotgun, so he spent the trip into town keeping the van driver from killing us (which I’m very thankful for).

After checking into our hotel (the Ramada on Colfax Ave next to the tattoo parlors) we headed over to the Rock Bottom Brewing Company on 16th Street to meet up with Melissa, one of Rob’s friends that lives in Denver. There we enjoyed some wonderful Rock Bottom brews with Melissa and her coworkers. They all showed some wonderful hospitality to the out of towners. Here is my poor blurry iPhone pic of their beer board.

After imbibing for a bit we left in search of food (yes, we left a restaurant to go find a restaurant). That search led us to Hamburger Mary’s. After some great food (I had the enchilada’s with green chilies) and drinks, we discovered we were in for a special treat. At 9pm on Tuesday’s, Hamburger Mary’s has Drag Queen Bingo. They passed out bingo sheets and stampers and treated us to a hilarious 2 hours of bingo excitement.

If you are in town on a Tuesday night, you must go check this out. It was quite vulgar and profane, but in all the right ways. Unfortunately neither Rob, Melissa, nor I won any of the bingo games. So close, but no bingo.

On the way back to the hotel we swung by one more place before calling it a night. We checked out the Streets of London Pub on Colfax. A delightful place with a very Punk Rock meets Hell’s Angels meets Soccer Hooligans type vibe. And it was $2 You Call It which you just can’t beat.

Finally we retired to our Ramada (which we would later find out is referred to as the Rock-mada) to call an end to day one.

Click to read Part 2.