Cafeoutdoors.com: GABF Recap

Well, I made it back home. I left my notes at home, so I can't post up exactly what all I tried.

Let me first say that words cannot describe the event. If you like craft beer at all, this is a MUST ATTEND event.

A buddy and I attended the Thursday night session. Got in the building at 6pm. I had a map marked with appx 20 brewers that I wanted to sample first & foremost. After we hit those, we decided we'd just browse around and hit whatever we wanted. I didn't know what to expect and I didn't know how many different beers we could realistically sample. I figured 30-40 (1 oz) samples would be a good night, since I had heard (read) from veterans of this event that they hit 60-70 in a night. I took a small note pad, mainly to keep track of how many beers I tried and I also rated them on a scale of 1-10. I know that at the end of the night, alot more samples were given higher ratings than at the beginning...

All in all I had over 60 samples of beer from 6pm till last pour at 9:45. I was amazed when I got back and counted them all. I only gave one beer a 10 out of all that I tried. It was a fest beer (Maerzen style) from Grand Teton Brewing. Sweet nectar of love was it good. I went back to their booth 3 times (and no there wasn't a hotty serving it either)

I sampled everything from light lagers to imperial stouts. I pu$$ed out on the barleywines. I sampled beers from Massachusetts to Hawaii and Alaska.
Just from memory, the ones that stood out as being different than anything I had ever tried were, a couple blueberry ales, a pumpkin ale (From California, I think), a black licorice beer and a wood aged IPA from a brewery in Omaha. I ate just before we left for the event so I didn't feel too bad when I left. I was buzzed pretty good, but not stumblin drunk. I took a small bag of pretzels and stuffed them in my pocket. Let me say the fad at this event is the pretzel necklace. If you don't have one on, you suck..

Ozark, I talked to a brewer in attendance from BJ's. He knew Toby, but said Toby was unable to make the trip. I didn't ask why or why not.

I'll post up exactly what all I tried later on this week, when I get caught up on everything.

All I can say now is that nothing will ever top this event other than attending the next one.

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