AURORA | Few weekends compare to this one in Colorado’s beer scene.
The Great American Beer Festival in Denver, which started Thursday and runs through Saturday, is expected to draw 750 brewers from around the world as well as 60,000 beer lovers eager to sample their latest concoctions.
Among the brewers in attendance are a couple Aurora beer makers who have left the world-famous festival with prestigious hardware in the past: Dry Dock Brewing Co. and Coda Brewing Co.
Dry Dock has taken home several awards from the festival, including in 2009 when they were named Small Brewing Company and Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year. Coda won a silver medal last year in the American-Style Fruit Beer category for their Silver Sleepyhead Passion Fruit.
Coda brewer Luke Smith said the weekend is hard to compare to any other event on the beer calendar, not just in Colorado but anywhere.
“It’s one of the biggest weeks of the beer industry all together,” he said Thursday as he got Coda’s booth ready at the Denver Convention Center.
And it’s not just a chance for local brewers to show off their beer, it’s a chance for beer nuts like Smith to sample some tough-to-find suds as well. In particular, Smith said he is looking forward to trying whats on offer from California’s The Rare Barrel and The Lost Abbey, another California operation.
If you are one of the many beer drinkers who didn’t score a ticket to GABF, some local brewers are offering a few sips of consolation.
Nine breweries — Caution Brewing Co., Coda, both Dry Dock locations, Fiction Beer Co., Launch Pad Brewing Co., Mu Brewing Co., Peak to Peak Tap Room and Two22 Brew — are teaming up for a sort of east-side brewery tour. Stop by any participating brewery through Oct. 3 to earn money off beer, growler fills and other goodies. On the first visit, ask for your passport card and bartenders at each will mark your visit and give you a buck off your first pint. Stop by five of them and get a growler and fill, stop by all nine and get a swag basket.
Copper Kettle Brewing Co., just west of the Aurora line, is getting in on the GABF fun too with some new beers. They unveiled a Vanilla Chai Pumpkin Porter and Colorado LocALE — a hoppy American pale ale — earlier this week. This weekend, they are releasing a Framboise Sour Ale, a tart, Belgian lambic was brewed with fresh raspberries and aged in red wine barrels for 22 months.