GABF 2014 Pictorial Part 2:People in the Brewing Industry

Through the years of beer seeking, I have meet many people who work in the brewing industry. And a few of these people have helped in my growing enthusiasm for beer. During the GABF, I bumped into these marvelous people and took snapshots of them at this great fest.

I think that it's enhances the experience of GABF when the brewers or owners are at their booths pouring beer.

Sam Calagione, founder and President
of Dogfish Head.

Lynne Weaver, founder and
Alexandra Nowell, head brewer of
Three Weavers Brewing.

Glenn Closson, founder and a staff member of
Beach City Brewing.

David Walker, co-founder of
Firestone Walker Brewing.

Beachwood BBQ Brewing, owner and head brewer.

Kevin Ely, head brewer at Uinta Brewing.

Kim Collins, head brewer at
Barrel and Bottles Brewing.

Matt Cutter, founder of Upslope Brewing.

As I walked around the fest, I meet up with some folks in the brewing industry who were gracious in allowing me to take a snapshot of them.

Dave and Nicole, beer servers at Odd 13 Brewing.

Steve Kaczeus, founder/brewer at Bootstrap Brewing.

Sam Scruby, head brewer at Upslope Brewing
and Kendra Springer, Texas state representative
at Upslope.

Jamie Wells, founder/brewer at J Wells Brewing.

One of the greatest treat of GABF is the fun attitude that is displayed by everyone at the fest!

GABF 2014 Pictorial:Breweries

I often try to take photographs as a pictorial of the experience and GABF was no exception. I present to you my pictorial of the three days of GABF.

The Breweries GABF Booths:

Dogfish Head Brewing, DE

Short's Brewing, MI

New Holland Brewing, MI

Deschutes Brewery,  OR

Uinta Brewing, UT

Wasatch Brewing, UT

Anderson Valley Brewing, CA

Pizza Port Brewing, CA

Firestone Walker Brewing, CA

Odell Brewing, CO

Great Divide Brewing,CO

New Belgium Brewing, CO

Avery Brewing, CO

Beer Bloggers Conference 2014 in San Diego

This years Beer Bloggers Conference was in San Diego at the Marriott Hotel. I was nervous at first since I would be attending this conference with known beer bloggers and this was my first. But the attendees were very friendly and with the beers flowing it was easy to mingle.

I believe that the conference is worth the cost of attending even with the separate cost of the room and flight. There is two days of beers, food, panels, seminars, and more beer.  I was treated to breweries located in South California and to beers not distributed outside of the state. 

Lagunitas Brewing Co and Stone Brewing Co, are both known throughout the states but they poured beer for the conference that you could only get at the brewery.  The guys at Lagunitas Brewing provided a party for the conference with beer, dessert, live music, video op on a couch, and announce the release of Born Yesterday Pale Ale first at the conference.

Ken Grossman

The big names in brewing were there for panel sessions. I met Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada, I sat at his table during our lunch excursion at the Yard House. he spoke later that day about the history of his brewery. There was a panel of Tomme Arthur, founder of Lost Abbey brewing; Chuck Silva, brewer of Green Flash; and Peter Zien, founder of Alesmith Brewing. They spoke about the history of the San Diego brewing scene.  David Walker co-founder of Firestone Walker Brewing was at the Beer Social. 

Panel with Tomme Arthur, Chuck Silva,
and Peter Zien.

I attended two seminars or break sessions, one was about photography in blogging and the other was videography in blogs with Alan Kropf who is the Director of Education at Anchor Distilling Co and founder of Mutineer Magazine. It was very interesting and educational, it made me realize that I need to step up my game in photography.

There was food and beer pairings at Karl Strauss Brewpub, The Yard House, and Stone Brewing Bistro & Garden in San Diego.  The transportation to all outside excursions was provided by Zephyr Adventures.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend that I will definitely do again next year.

Firestone Walker tap takeover at Backcountry Pizza in Boulder

Wednesday of the Craft Beer Conference was a tap takeover of Firestone Walker Brewing Co rare beers at Backcountry Pizza and Tap House in Boulder. The tapping of beers was at 6pm sharp with everyone behind the hustling to make sure all the taps were working correctly, all went well and we were able to preorder while seating at the bar. 

The line up for Wednesday:

2012, 2013, 2014 Parabola

2012, 2013 Double DBA

2013 Velvet Merkin

2013, 2014 Sucaba

2013 Stickee Monkey

16th Anniversary

17th Anniversary

Agrestic

Lil' Mikkel

Pivo Pilsner

DBA

Union Jack and Easy Jack

I had the 2102 Parabola, a 13% ABV bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout that even at 2 years old, it was still very boozy to me. Boozy on the nose and front-end but fell out at the finish.

Jordan, bartender hustles to pour Firestone
Walker rare beers.

I really liked the 2013 Merkin, a 8.5% ABV bourbon barrel-aged oatmeal stout. It had a subtle bourbon nose but was creamy smooth in the mouth with sweet chocolate notes and a slight bourbon burn in the throat. 

I had the pleasure of meeting David Walker, co-founder of the brewery. I was surprised that he is British, I don't know why but I assume all American brewers are from here. But he is a pleasant man who was readily open to conversation. Some brewers/owners of breweries can be put off because of the onslaught of  beer fans approaching them.  I asked him why he doesn't brew in the English Style and he said that he did with their first beer, DBA.   DBA is a double barrel ale that is an English Special Bitter.

David Walker, co-founder of Firestone Walker and me.

I went searching for information about the DBA and came across some about the process of brewing this beer. It is brewed in the Burton Union system that was developed in England in 1840. Firestone Walker patented this system of that "incorporates 60-gallon heavy or medium toast American oak barrels into a brewing process that yields beers of extraordinary character and complexity."(Firestone Walker website) The wort is aged in these barrels for 6 days then transferred to stainless steel for secondary fermentation. 20% of the oaked fermented beer is then blended with beer fermented in stainless steel. Pretty impressive!