2009 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO

This video is an overview of the 2009 Great American Beer Festival.  This 28th Annual Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO was an amazing and well organized event.  With over 49,000 attendees this year, surprisingly the floor never felt all that crowded.  This was our first time at the GABF, but we are guessing that the 46% more space added this year helped to create a more comfortable venue.

The Brewers Association estimates that there was 18,000 gallons of beer at this event, which meant that on the showroom floor you could sample 2,100 different beers from 495 breweries across the country.   Although even at 1oz per sample, it would be impossible to try them all (2,100 1oz samples = 132 pints).   51 of the breweries were attending for the first time, which is a testament to the growth of craft beer.

There were 78 categories being judged this year by a panel of 132 judges from 10 different countries.  A whopping 3,308 beers were entered in to the Great American Beer Festival Competition this year, each vying for a medal in their category.  Unlike many wine events, where a particular score awards you a medal; at the Great American Beer Festival there is only one Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medal per category.  This means that each of the three winning beers in each category represent one of the best examples of that beer style in the United States.  Congratulations out there to all of the Medal winners of the 2009 GABF!

This well structured event also included 8 educational areas.  We had a chance to try the “You Be the Judge” seminar, where we got to try our hand at judging a few beers.  In addition there were dozens of other events around Denver, both tied to the Great American Beer Festival and Denver Beer Week.  We encourage you to check out some of our other coverage of the GABF including the Farm to Table event, Pints for Prostates event, Samuel Adams Longshot Competition, our posts about Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4, and our Best Dressed of the GABF segment.

We hope you enjoy our coverage of the GABF as much as we enjoyed attending this event.  Cheers from Here for the Beer, we hope to see you at the Great American Beer Festival next year.