2010 Great American Beer Festival - Day 2

 I have no idea what this means

Part of our Friday GABF experience included a media tour of Breckenridge's production facility and Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey distillery. While at Breckenridge, we enjoyed samples of Agave Wheat, Vanilla Porter and Lucky U IPA. We learned a few things too, after all, why invite the media out if you're not going to fill them with information! For example, we discovered that Breckenridge was the first brewery in Colorado to bottle their beer. We also learned that while Avalanche is the number one selling Breckenridge beer in Colorado, it's Vanilla Porter everywhere else. Breckenridge is currently expecting to be up to 30,000 barrels by the end of the year.

 

Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey is really a unique entry in the world of American Whiskeys. For starters, they previously had both Flying Dog and Oskar Blues create their mash before building their own brewery (just to produce mash for their whiskey). Their whiskey is also created using a variety of methods and custom equipment to cross the techniques of bourbon distillers and scotch distillers. Once finished with their barrels, they ship them to brewers all over the country and even as far away as Belgium. The Rackhouse Pub hosted a sampling of Wynkoop's new canned beers and had a great atmosphere decorated with used whiskey barrels.

Our brewery trip ended at Wynkoop for the Pints for Prostates Rare Beer Tasting. Since we were running a bit late, we arrived at the very end of the tasting and our selection was limited to what had not yet ran out. We weren't concerned, as great options such as 2009 Foothills Sexual Chocolate, 2004 Bell's Eccentric Ale, Barrel-aged Ivan the Terrible and Sierra Nevada Brandy Barrel-Aged Tripel were still left. After making our way through the rare beers, we tried a few of Wynkoop's rare beers, including a Belgian farmhouse ale fermented with 100% Brettanomyces and a barleywine from 2007. Both were great choices, but we had a beer festival we had to get to!

 Sexual Chocolate

Ivan the Terrible

Rare beer from Wynkoop - Orville and an aged Barleywine

During the Friday session of GABF, we spent some time at the Farm to Table event, where brewers and local chefs experimented and paired unique courses with interesting beers. This is where Greg Koch ambushed Matt with a Greg-face. Matt also got a picture with celebrity brewer Sam Calagione. We found Blaine Stuckey over by the Mad Anthony table, sharing his unique brand of beer festival antics with the Denver crowd. He was also dressed to party.

 

 Sam and Matt - Sam, we will forever harass you at beer festivals because of your toast video

Greg and Matt - Only one of these two guys looks terrified

The Mad Anthony crew

Cheers!