Just under a month ago I went to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. I really should have written something about it before now, but am still trying to get my head around the whole experience. Two and a half days, 450+ breweries and more than 2000 different beers, in a city with half a dozen really good breweries and plenty more quality beer bars...I described it in my notes as like trying to take a drink from a firehose. It was a blur and in a way I am still trying to make sense of it. So it was reassuring to see I was actually there when I cropped up in the background of this photo posted on US beer writer Carolyn Smagalski's blog...that's me, just behind Michelob brewer Adam Goodson's left ear...no, not the guy about to sip a big, foamy beer...further in the background looking like I'm wearing a black turtleneck (I'm not incidentally, I'll leave that to the wine writers.) I took over 600 photos in Denver and this is probably the only one with me in it.
The Michelob Rye-ters block (so named because it was brewed based on suggestions from beer writers invited to the event) was my first beer in Denver and was excellent. My notes accorded with Carolyn's, though I accentuated the balance of this beer and underlined my surprise at a beer like this coming from Michelob, a brewery I only knew of by reputation and from the watery Michelob Ultra that is available in Australia.
I have just filed a story for Beer & Brewer magazine about Denver as a great beer destination...the magazine hits the streets mid-November. I'll write more about Denver and the GABF in time...but I think I really need to head back next year so I can shake the feeling from my last visit that I was just a pebble skimming across a pond of beer.