The Party At and Around GABF

Everyone knows that the Great American Beer Festival is a giant beer party. Hundreds of breweries around the country bring in their mainline beers and some of their best offerings for the big show. The event is amazing, you enter the convention center with tens of thousands of people as bagpipes overwhelm you with a wall of sound. People rush to the booths where the rarest beers will disappear quickly and then they set off to try beers that they can only get while at GABF. The brewers too come with excitement as they hope to snag a coveted GABF award (Huge congrats to Trinity for their Bronze in the American Brett Ale category!). While most don't win anything, I imagine no one goes home truly upset, it's practically impossible to leave GABF without a sense that you've just had the best few days of your life. Plus your liver is hurting and you spend one day recuperating, and that's also one of the best days ever.

But there's much more to GABF than meets the eye. There are literally a hundred-plus events happening around Denver that supplement the festivities. Some of them are rare beer tappings, or beers that aren't normally available to Colorado and other markets. Some are fundraisers, some are big cook-outs, some you can meet the brewers, etc. etc. etc. We went to a number of these events. In many ways we enjoyed these as much as the big event itself because they were slightly quieter and slower and that's just what we needed. So this post really is a look at the party Around GABF rather than a look At GABF.

Pliny the Younger at Falling Rock and Wynkoop's Beerdrinker of the Year

Introducing Isaac Grindeland, the newest writer for Focus on the Beer.

Here's a few happenings that were going on in Denver this last Saturday. Since Pliny the Younger wouldn't be tapped at Trinity until April 11th at 5 pm, I decided to make the trip, without Eric, to Falling Rock Taphouse for their second tapping of the month of Pliny the Younger. For those not familar with this juice of the barley, it is the nephew of Pliny the Elder from Russian River Brewing company in Santa Rosa, CA. Pliny the Younger is an 11% triple IPA and hopped three times more than their standard IPA plus dry hopped four different times. They only release this magical brew once a year in February. As opposed to other coveted beer such as Three Floyds Dark Lord and Surly Darkness where you can only get the beer at the brewery or at the town of the brewery, Russian River graciously sends kegs to regional states for beerophiles to enjoy. This was my first tasting of the beer, and it did not disappoint. Falling Rock did a great job orchestrating the crowds by giving each person a red ticket guaranteeing a beer. The crowds weren't terribly big, and I was able to get two generous goblet style pints. Pliny the Younger was very similar to Pliny the Elder in flavor and aroma but with an added hopburst. I expected the flavor to be a lot sweeter since it's a triple IPA, but they did a great job of finishing this beer out with amazing balance and noticeable, but not hot, alcohol warmth.A herd of Pliny the Younger (very rare sighting!)
Myself decked out with my Russian River garb, reading Radical Brewing, and enjoying Pliny the Younger.

The beer gods favored Pliny the Younger this day. A beautiful sight to behold.

I met up with some fellow Brew Brother of Pikes Peak at Falling Rock after our Pliny fills, and we headed over to Wynkoop Brewing Company for The Beerdrinker of the Year finalists competition. The seats were full to watch