Notes from the Beer and Cheese Benefit

A huge thank you to everyone who came out on Monday to support Gabe Jordan and Kelly Funk. We raised a significant amount of money for the two charities, which is very exciting. Through the donations of our beer and cheese vendors and the employees of Goose the Market, we were able to donate 100% of the money we collected to charity! In case you missed this beer and cheese pairing, we'll definitely be having more events with Goose the Market in the future. Keep checking back for these events, and many more coming soon!

If you'd like to play along at home, here are the beer and cheese pairings we had. All of the beers and cheeses are available at Goose the Market.

Schneider Wiesen Edel-Weisse (organic Hefeweizen) with Vermont Shepherd's Cheese from Vermont Shepherd (raw sheep milk, aged 4-8 months) - The yeast in this beer, while typically subdued by fruit flavors, becomes very creamy with this cheese.

Sun King Osiris Pale Ale with Mayberry from Swiss Connection (pasteurized cheddar from Indiana) - This sharp cheddar stands up to the crisp hop bitterness; two Indiana producers!

Hop Ruiter (Belgian pale) with La Mancha Moo from Evergreen Lane Farm (Camembert-style cow's milk from Michigan) - The earthiness of the cheese creates a pleasing match for the sweet and spicy Belgian yeast.

Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous (black IPA) with Fog Lights from Cypress Grove (multi-layered/textured goat cheese from California) - Despite the hoppy nature of this beer, the pairing left behind nothing but pure milk chocolate. My favorite of the night!

Kulmbacher Brauerei EKU 28 (Doppelbock) with Bûche from Juniper Grove (raw goat's milk cheese from Oregon with a piece of straw in the middle of each log) - the tanginess of the goat cheese was interesting with the strong sweetness of this beer. I'll admit I almost ate the straw...

Sinebrychoff Porter (Baltic porter) with Velours Bleu from Life in France (mold ripened with thin lines of blue, cow's milk) - I wasn't a huge fan of this beer on its own, but when paired I picked up strong notes of cola. Very interesting.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and helped donate to Gabe and Kelly. If you aren't already experimenting with pairing cheese and beer, you should be! The interactions are an adventure on their own.

2010 Great American Beer Fest Wrap Up

Where to even begin talking about the Great American Beer Fest. I will begin by saying that I thought the GABF couldn't live up to the hype that others and myself had built it up to be, but I was indeed incorrect about that assumption. My first thought was 49,000 tickets? That isn't really an issue though. There are so many brewers that show up to the GABF and the Denver convention center is so massive that during the Thursday and Saturday day sessions there isn't really a line for any brewers except for a select few. Friday night session and Saturday night session are more highly attended, but even then you can get right up to any table and get a sample without much hassle, but those sessions and those crowds are a little more.....drunk and obnoxious.

I really have to tip my hat to the people behind the Brewers Association and the GABF though. Here are some of the numbers for the beer fest:

49,000 attendees
3400 volunteers that help run the festival
2200 beers in the festival
3500 beers to be judged for competition
largest selection of beer ever on the convention floor

Some of my personal highlights:
Trinity Brewing from Colorado Springs, CO brought some really great beer. I didn't hit many brewers twice, but I think Rod and I hit Trinity no less than 15 times. The Flavor was one of the best beers there as was Old Growth. They were sour style beers that were showcased the talent of the brewer. Some sour beers I've had the brewer tends to have more brett cultures than talent, but these were some of the best sours I've ever had in my life. I am trying my best to trade for one of these beers on the beer websites.

The Bruery from California brought Black Tuesday and Oude Tart. I thought both of those were really tremendous.

Cascade Brewing from Portland, OR is another fantastic purveyor of the power of sour. I loved their kriek, bubonic plague, and Vlad the Imp Aler.

Iron Hill Brewing out of Pennsylvania won a gold metal for their pig iron porter that was really fantastic. I hit them more than once before the awards ceremony because I liked that beer that much.

Someone that I've never heard of before, but now I am considering a trip to Vermont just to hit them up is The Alchemist Pub & Brewery. I had the pleasure to hear a demonstration by owner and head brewer of the Alchemist, John Kimmich. He is serious and passionate about his beer. They only brew about 450 barrels a year, but they do not bottle and they do not allow growler sales. He also took home some hardware from GABF after the awards ceremony. If you are ever in Vermont they are a must hit. I had their double IPA called Ouroboros. It was one of the cleanest tasting DIPA's that I've personally ever tasted. I usually can't drink a great deal of hop bomb style beers, but I could have had several of these in one sitting.

Duck-Rabbit brewing from Farmville, North Carolina: They call themselves the dark beer specialists and I sampled everything they brought. I've had them before but their schwarzbier was tremendous and had reignited my passion for that style.

For my first GABF I couldn't have asked for a better time. Rod luckily was my tour guide the whole time and helped tremendously with knowing where to go. I've read some negative things about the fest, but quite honestly you are going to get that when you get that many people in a room full of beer. I can say that I will never again go to the Saturday night session. Most of the brewers don't show up for that session, people start running out of beer, and the crowd is just there to get as drunk as possible. The other three sessions were really great, but the feel of the last session is just a whole different animal. The city of Denver is a great town and I plan to head back when I can just to check out some other things outside of GABF. I will certainly go back again next year.

2010 Great American Beer Festival - Day 3

On the third day of the Great American Beer Festival, there were two sessions, one Saturday afternoon and one Saturday evening. The two sessions could not be any more different. Saturday afternoon features the awards announcements and is mostly for the brewers and Saturday evening is largely a giant drunkfest. It's unfortunate, but that seems to be the way the festival has evolved. For that reason, we thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon session and only stopped by the evening session to grab a few more tastes of Trinity's The Flavor.  Here is a photo montage to commemorate the final day of GABF.

The famous giant bear peering in to the convention center

The front of the line for the afternoon session

Interesting graphic of the number of microbreweries in each state

The Sierra Nevada guys actually pedaled their trolley to Falling Rock one night - never again!

New Belgium always arrives with 12+ beers available

Tons of interesting Odell beers on tap including Deconstruction and Woodcut #4

Upslope is a hot new brewery in Boulder

These keg guys have been to GABF every year I have!

Dogfish Head had a line all session, every session

Iron Hill has great beers and won a few awards too

Representing Indiana RAM and Upland style

Alaskan brews one of the best smoked porters in the world

Foothills, home of Sexual Chocolate

Lost Abbey and Port Brewing of course had lines

Deschutes began to run out of beer on Saturday

Ted trying to get the secret of Upland lambics

Fat Heads had a great smoke beer and one of this year's Collaborative Evil

Matt is just trying to figure out where to get in on the High Life

Elysian poured my favorite pumpkin beer - Dark O' The Moon

We stopped at Pints Pub after the afternoon session for dinner.  This authentic English pub has a menu full of English food, is brewing 8+ English style ales in the restaurant, is serving proper live ale and houses one of the largest scotch selections in the world.  Needless to say, we had a great dinner!

ESB on nitro

Check out that beautiful scotch!