![]() If you want a shot at GABF hardware and having your very own beer poured at the festival hall for-ahem-60,000 attendees, make sure you join the AHA, start working on your recipe, and find a competition to enter. The selections change each day of the festival, rotating through the 118 classic and boundary-pushing beer styles of the competition. ![]() While many festival-goers scramble about and queue up to taste rarities from their favorite breweries, visitors to the Pro-Am Booth take a lap around an island of 40 different award-winning beers developed by homebrewers, all of whom must be AHA members. If you are the type who understands the power of networking and making connections, well then this is pretty much the pinnacle for the beer industry.Want to know the best-kept secret at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF)? Hint: it’s not the badge-only restroom. Literally everywhere you go, any restaurant, any bar, there are brewery staff. I was able to say hello to Natalie, the NJ beer rep for Weyerbacher who I had met previously at some local events in doing that I also struck up a conversation with the head brewer I introduced myself to the owner of Chugger Pumps who is located in NJ and came to a WHALES club meeting a year or two ago I met the owners of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News when they stopped by the Harvest Moon booth and I could quite easily have walked over to the Dogfish Head tent no more than 20 yards away from my booth and shook hands with Sam Calagione if I wanted to, and yes he is right there setting up and serving beer! I even walked right past him on the street one morning as I was walking towards the convention center. Beyond the beer though, when you are working behind the scenes as a volunteer, you get access to all of the brewing staff and crews staffing the table. every festival has its own crew of volunteers who help with everything from crowd safety to wristbanding to pouring samples! I can personally recommend ACBF and GABF now, but there are lots more local options in every state at this point - just ask the organizers if you see a flyer or ad for one in your area.įor those of you more interested in tasting notes and descriptions of the rare beers that were there, I imagine one of the other bloggers who was there will write about that! Some of the more interesting beers I tried were a grisette fermented with brettanomyces, a spontaneously fermented ale from Allagash which was one of the most delicious sours I've ever had, a really tasty robust porter, and a saison made with wheat and oats. It’s a ton of fun to serve and chat with everyone, and you don’t need VIP access to get back stage. This was a really cool experience, and I highly recommend volunteering at a major beer festival whether it's with a brewery or the festival itself. ![]() Here are some photos I took, mainly from the new "brewpub pavilion" section.Īs you may have guessed by now, because I am a frequent volunteer I was able to tag along with Harvest Moon Brewery & Cafe and help them work the booth. It’s a hard balance to strike for sure, but compared to my experience at the American Craft Beer Fest (ACBF) in Boston a few years ago, this festival was cleaner, calmer, less crowded, easier to navigate, and had fewer incredibly long lines. This had the effect of tickets selling out much faster, but also made it a more enjoyable experience for everyone attending. My conclusion, perhaps obvious, is that they finally decided to draw the line at a reasonable number of tickets rather than sell as many as possible. I’ve also heard comments about how nice and orderly it was this year compared to previous years. This year was my first time going to the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), and judging by the amount of Facebook comments I got with the words “jealous”, “no way”, and the occasional “you jerk!” I’m guessing you probably wanted to go too! I’ve heard varying estimates of how quickly the tickets sold out this year, from 15 seconds to 15 minutes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |