GABF 2011 Day 2 – Fallout With Pics
Writer Danny Fullpint and Photographer Jonny Fullpint share their crazy day 2 at The Great American Beer Festival. Cheers!
Brewers Association Luncheon
Being part of the “media” has provided us with several event invitations, and most importantly invitations to wonderfully organized seminars hosted by the Brewers Association. We started our day with a 4 course beer pairing lunch, while we listened to passionate members of the brewing industry. It was kicked off by Sam Calagione, and from there, we got to hear some of the unsung heroes explain their journey into the craft beer industry. It was very classy, and very well organized. While I love Nebraska’s Melange A Tois, the standout beer was Rock Bottom La Jolla’s Black Ale. A big thanks to the BA for this.
Denver Rare Beer Tasting III at Wynkoop Brewing
Two words: Beer Christmas. If you are into the rarer beers in circulation, you’ll know how expensive of a hobby it can bee. With admission to this event, we were being poured ridiculously rare, strong, tasty beer. Until yesterday, Samuel Adams Utopias has been a cost prohibitive beer for me to try. Well, they had a few 5 gallon kegs of it. We got to try rare tasty beers from Brooklyn, Great Divide, Nebraska, Cigar City, The Bruery, Weyerbacher and more. We’ve never been to Wynkoop before, and we were impressed with the layout of the event, and the generous food spread.
Our First Visit To Falling Rock
We finally went to Falling Rock around 5pm. We were very impressed with the tap selection, and the outdoor ambiance. We met up with cool folks we’ve known and had a couple of beers. and a bunch of laughs. We went next door to the coolest bar I’ve been to, called 1Up. 1Up is a bar with 80’s arcade games. Great great concept!
Festival Night 2
This seemed like double the crowd from night one. It was a little hectic, so we took a few laps around the convention center, said hi to some people, and headed out early for dinner. There were so many people, we couldn’t shoot text messages using AT&T.
The AFTER PARTY
As another perk of carrying a media badge, we attended a party at the Marriot which had all the beers that didn’t make it to round 2 our 3 of the judging competition. My analogy was shopping at ROSS. Yes, they have some nice shirts there, but you have to go through a few racks to find that hot shit. Trust me, there was some amazing gems lining the walls of a Marriot conference room.
BIG SHOUTOUTS
Big SHOUTOUTS to: Bobby The Fire Sulivan, Iaian The Hop Man and the Hop Man Kru, New Brew Thursday, Sweet Jean “PNW” Powell, Mr. and Mrs. Bootleggers, Clay, Lil Randy Clemens, Art from Jackie O’s, Chef Paxton, and my Street Fighter opponent Ryan Sweeney!
