PJ Hoberman

Events Surrounding GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is.. great. There are almost 500 breweries serving more than 2,200 different beers, all in one room.

But this is Denver. That’s just not enough beer. So pretty much every establishment with a liquor license throws down like prohibition just ended. Or started.

Pretty much the last time you'll see Falling Rock this empty until after GABF.

The Denver Travel and Visitor Bureau has a great website that showcases pretty much every inch of the Mile High City and the surrounding area. They have a list of beer events happening between September 10th and 19th that is.. long. A quick count – me copying and pasting the entire list into excel and seeing how far down the list goes – shows over 300 events. Have fun parsing through that.

That list isn’t even complete! What I’m trying to say is that there are a lot of events that week.

Here are some to pay attention to.

• Fri 9/10 Brew at the Zoo – 40 breweries and a suds safari. Seriously.
• Sat 9/11 Great COntenders at Wynkoop – Last year’s winner, this year’s contenders, and rare beers too.
• Sat 9/11 New Belgium Tour de Fat – Bikes. Beer. Bands. Other awesomeness.
• Sun 9/12 Beer Pairing Brunch – Strange @ Steubens – Dessert will be a Cherry Bomb Stout Float!. Limited seating.
• Mon 9/13 Beer and Cheese Pairing – Boulder Beer @ Root Down
• Tue 9/14 City O’ City Homebrew Competition – 5 Judges – 3 pro brewers, one beer sommelier, and the owner of City O City
• Wed 9/15 Beer Pairing – Mountain Sun @ Osteria Marco – Just like it sounds. Two great establishments pairing up.
• Wed 9/15 Rare Beer Tasting at Rackhouse Pub – $25, Avery, Great Divide, Breckenridge, Bristol, Wynkoop.
• Fri 9/17 Beer for Boobs Brunch at FreshCraft – Great beer, great women, great cause, get on it!
• Fri 9/17 Mutineer + New Holland @ Falling Rock – Chai Beer. Made by the Mutineers. I hear @thebeerwench had a heavy hand…
• Fri 9/17 Beer Advocate Does Denver – Join the boys from BA in a romp around town, hitting restaurants, bars and breweries.
• Sat 9/18 Oktoberfest 5k/10k – Don’t worry, there’s beer afterward.
• Sat 9/18 Gastravaganza @ Breck Brew – Street food and local beer. By the way, our street food is ahhmazing
• Sat 9/18 British Bulldog World Football & Beer – Awesome football (soccer, not NFL), great food, great beer. 7-11am happy hour.
• Week Long – Sweet Action Beer Ice Cream – All week long, Sweet Action is making ice cream with local brewery’s beer.
• Week Long – Avery Special Tappings – I don’t know if the list I received is public knowledge quite yet… But, GABF week, Avery will be tapping some amazing beers. Example: a 2006 cask of Samael.
• Week Long – Star Bar Big Beers – Much like Avery, the list I was given doesn’t seem to be public. But daaaamn. Their list of Avery rivals Avery’s list.
• Week Long – Great Divide – Beer Garden w/Apaloosa – Great Divide doesn’t serve food. So all week, Apaloosa Grill will be serving in the parking lot. Win.
• Week Long – Cheeky Monk – As if this bar wasn’t enough of a draw on a Tuesday… Every night, something awesome is happening.
• Week Long – Falling Rock – This is pretty much guaranteed to be awesome every minute during the week. I don’t have a list of events, but no matter what, if you go to Falling Rock, I guarantee something awesome will happen. And you, with the creepy Quagmire giggle.. No, not that.

Other places to keep an eye on: Euclid Hall, Colt & Gray, Big Game Denver, every other bar with a 303 area code…

As I learn about more awesome events, I’ll update this page. If you have an event that should be on this short list, leave me a comment or email me at pj [dot] hoberman [at] gmail [dot] com. And let me know where you’re going! I’ll be here all week. All year, really. But all week.