The craft beer industry — like much of America — is facing a reckoning on two levels right now: A pandemic ended more than a decade of growth well short of the industry’s goal to become 20% of the national beer market by 2020 and a racial justice movement highlighted craft brewing’s dominant white male […]
Great American Beer Festival
Posted inBusiness
How terroir influences the flavors in hops, told through a tasty Colorado beer experiment
This fall, a robust hop harvest in Colorado left David Lin at Comrade Brewing with a dilemma. Two Western Slope farms approached him with hops fresh from the bine for the Denver brewery’s award-winning Superdamp IPA. The beer — known as a wet hop or fresh hop — arrives once a year at harvest time […]
Posted inBusiness
Known for its whimsy, the craft beer world is newly focused on the basics: making good beer
If this week’s Great American Beer Festival — with its 800 breweries and 4,000 beers pouring — is a snapshot of the nation’s current craft beer industry, it’s a muddled image. A confluence of market forces is leading brewers to chase new trends and take risks that diminish the focus on quality and consistency that […]
Posted inNews
A guide to GABF 2019: What’s new, insider tips, and the can’t-miss breweries and events
It’s hard to describe the Great American Beer Festival to the uninitiated. It’s the Super Bowl of beer. It’s hop heaven. It’s a beer carnival. And so much more. Even as it faces more competition for attention — and slower ticket sales — GABF remains a zenith in the craft-beer world and a testament to […]
Posted inCulture, Outdoors
June is the best month for beer in Colorado. Follow this guide to find the good stuff.
The Great American Beer Festival each fall gets all the attention. And Colorado Beer Week in the spring is a popular celebration of the state’s craft beer scene. But the best month for beer in Colorado is June. The arrival of the summer months serves as a clarion call for great beer festivals across Colorado. […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans
A Colorado icon and father of craft beer steps away. Here are Charlie Papazian’s parting words.
Forty years ago, when Charlie Papazian founded the American Homebrewers Association, the idea of a homebrewer in every neighborhood and a brewery in every town seemed unreal. Now, it’s essentially reality with more than 6,000 breweries in America — thanks, in large part, to Papazian. He founded the homebrewers association in 1978, launched the Great […]
Posted inBusiness, Culture
A revamped Avery Brewing looks to keep its beer cred after 25 years
BOULDER — Adam Avery launched the brewery with his name in 1993 with a simple idea: “We are going to make great beer.” “And that worked for 25 years,” he says. But now with the beer industry seeing sales declines and 6,000 more breweries, it’s not enough. “We just have to up our game.” 2018 […]
Posted inBusiness, News
Oskar Blues thinks the future of craft brewing is in the collective
LONGMONT — Oskar Blues is building a national beer empire from its home in Colorado. And this week’s Great American Beer Festival is the unofficial debut. The Longmont brewer will pour beer from all seven brewers in its Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective side-by-side for the first time at the three-day festival in Denver. The demonstration […]
Posted inNews
A GABF 2018 guide to the best beers for everyone — from hazy IPAs to sours
The Great American Beer Festival is an overwhelming experience. So it helps to enter with a plan. Here’s a rundown for beer fans of all types on how to navigate a festival the size of 10 football fields and featuring 4,000 different beers from more than 800 breweries. Before we get there, a couple of […]
Posted inBusiness, Culture, News
Great American Beer Festival makes New England IPA an official style — but it can’t end the haze debate
The most coveted medals at this year’s Great American Beer Festival competition are hazy. For the first time, the Brewers Association will award medals at the festival Sept. 22 in downtown Denver for hazy pale ales, hazy IPAs and hazy double IPAs after creating new categories and guidelines for the styles earlier this year. The […]