GABF Day 1 - Thursday night session

Session #1 GABF

It is a very overwhelming feeling walking to the Colorado Convention Center knowing you have 465 breweries and over 2400 beers to choose from.  I am more of the stoic thinker when it comes to where I am going to hit than the ravenous person grabbing samples at every single table.  I had my must hits for the night, but I was really caught off guard at how many places were already out of beer by around 8:30.  Many beers were simple gobbled up as quickly as thirsty beer drinkers could get to them.  The convention center is easily laid out based on geographic region and then the brewers are then split up alphabetically.  It is pretty easy to get around and find the brewery you are looking for. It was exciting to see a new Indiana brewery Figure 8 representing Indiana as well.  The lines are usually not that long except for the end cap breweries that have massive followings.  The lines for Cigar City, Shorts, The Bruery, Alaskan, DogFish Head, Russian River, Three Floyds, and New Belgium were all pretty long, but moved very quickly. The whole night though I don’t think anyone had as long of a line as Cigar City.  Here are my winners for the night:

Short’s – Another Caucasian Gary inspiration from The Big Lebowski and it tasted very much like a White Russian

Cigar City – Hunahpu and Good Gourd Imperial Pumpkin Beer

Destihl from Normal, Illinois and their Saint Dekkera Barrel reserve series.  The 3.5 year old raspberry framboise was amazing.  I can’t wait to make a trip over there and check them out.

Jackie O’s from Ohio and their Oil of Aphrodite and Kentucky Monk were outstanding

Iron Hill’s Roggenbier

Alaskan’s 2000 smoked porter

The Bruery’s Black Tuesday

Funkwerks Saison

Brugge Brasserie’s Super Kitty Fantastico

Just going off of memory, these were the standous for me....

Alaskan Smoked Porter - 2000 edition
The Bruery Black Tuesday - more for the rarity, it's good but way hot
Brugge Brasserie Diamond Kings of Heaven
Cigar City Hunahpu - tons of vanilla!
Destihl eveything sour - seriously, all of their sours are good!
Goose Island Brewpub's Alba Madonna - WHITE TRUFFLES!
Deschutes Black Butte XIII - this drinks super smooth
Elysian Dark O' The Moon - pumpkin stout from th pumpkin mastes

And here's a photo dump!