Beer Festival News

Mrs. Mikey and myself absolutely love going to the Great American Beer Festival, we have been faithful attendees since 1998. Normally we'd fly in on the first day, grab a beer and lunch then go purchase all of our tickets at the box office.

Well that was a different world. Now if you haven't purchased your tix at least a month in advance you'll be scrambling to scalp. Now it seems that a month in advance may way be too late. The festival that starts on Sept. 24th, 2009 is seeing unprecedented early ticket sales.

As of last Thursday

Thursday - 29% sold
Friday - 36% sold
Saturday (Members-Only Session) - 56% sold
Saturday - 23% sold

This is nuts! I always advocate that if you love beer you should go, so this is an very early reminder to get your shit together and to get it in your head that tix will be gone sooner than normal.

Also, Congrats go out to Salt Lake's Michael Johnson, a member of Zion Zymurgist Homebrew OPerative Society (ZZHOPS) who recieved a silver medal for his Weizenbock homebrew, at the 2009 National Homebrew Competition in Oakland last week.

1,310 home brewers entered 5,166 beers in what is now the largest beer competition in the world. no small feat. Congratulations again Mike!

Utah's 2008 GABF Medalists

Well we made it. After three sessions and hundreds of ounces of beer, our yearly pilgrimage to Beer Mecca has concluded. What did we learn?... Well, no matter how beered-out you may think you are; pouring another fine American craft beer down the ol' pipes brings you right back to square-one. Also, Utah's brewers still know how to represent. Below are this years winners at GABF. All should be available for purchase right now. I recommend getting out sampling these fine brews and congratulate our local brewers for the fine jobs they do. More to come....

2008 GABF

American-Style or Belgian-Style Ale

Bronze-Fifth Element-Squatters Brewing

Category 35: German-Style Schwarzbier

Silver-Cherny Bock-Bohemian Brewing

Category 56: German-Style Altbier

Bronze-All The Way Alt-Desert Edge Brewing

Category 58: German-Style Wheat Ale

Bronze-Wasatch Hefeweizen-Wasatch Brewing

Category 59: Belgian-Style Wit

Silver-Belgian Wit-Red Rock Brewing

Bronze-Squatters Wit-Utah Brewers Coop

GABF 2008 is officially sold out!

If your planning on attending the Great American Beer Festival starting Oct. 9th, I hope you've already grabbed your tickets. If not... you may be shit-out-of-luck. For the first time ever GABF has sold out every session a record two-weeks early! Your only options are to win them on local Denver radio stations, and if you don't live there that may make it, well.... I think you get it. If your thinking of getting from a scalper beware. Most online purchases are "print your own" tickets. Each with a specific bar-code to be scanned upon entry. This could lead to very easy counterfeiting. Just an FYI. Sorry to be such a bummer....

It's like Disney Land... with Beer!

If your planning on attending this years Great American Beer Festival you'd better get on it. Its only a short seven weeks away! It's kinda-like the Disney Land of beer... except for the rides... and the kids. Other than that it's truly a "magical kingdom" for three days. People don their festive head-gear,(aka mouse ears) are greeted by colorful characters(just don't hug 'em) and just have kid-like fun... only with beer.

There will also be many opportunities to learn more about your favorite brews and styles as well as book signings, food & beer pairing seminars featuring an A-list of America's brewers and national celebrity chefs and of course the world's largest and most prestigious beer tasting competition featuring 400+ breweries, sampling nearly 1900 beers.

GABF runs from Oct 9-11 with a total of four public tastings. Get your tickets soon. Or you'll be shit-out-of-luck. Trust me.