The Great American Beer Festival, the second largest beer festival in the world took place last month and I had the good fortune of attending this year’s festivities. Celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, the GABF tickets sold out in record time, clocking in with 49,000 attendees. There were 466 breweries at the festival, serving 2,375 different beers, and 238 medals were awarded, including 18 to breweries entering the competition for the first time. In a word, it was EPIC.
As I began to explore the tremendous world of craft beer a couple of years ago, one thing became abundantly clear: every beer is like a person, possessing individual personalities, stories, and characteristics. The basic components are the same, but the variables that are present give craft beer immense potential to create insanely interesting, complex and delicious beers. I mean really, what could be more exciting?
If a little sign wasn’t hanging from the top of the building, you’d never even know Brooklyn Brewery was there. Since 1988, Brooklyn has distributed its beer from New York to Texas, and many states in between. On site, Brooklyn only brews about 20-30% of its product, concentrating mainly on their big bottle series (such as the Local 1 and Local 2), along with some more experimental brews. Our tour guide walked us through a quick educational lesson about the main ingredients in beer, the brewing process, and then walked us through the history of the brewery, highlighting the story behind their logo. The tour itself is very short, but everyone is encouraged to stick inside the brew house for 10-15 minutes, take a look at the equipment, and ask more questions as needed. You can even bring your beer from the pub to the tour!
Today’s post comes from Justin K. Thanks Justin!
The New England Real Ale Exhibition (NERAX) runs from March 30th through April 2nd in Somerville, MA. This festival showcases cask ale from British and American breweries. (For a detailed explanation of what cask ale is read Beeriety’s article here.) Because cask ale has a relatively short shelf life once it’s tapped the show focused on having new beers go up each day. If you were to attend Wednesday night and again Saturday you would see two very different beer lists.
Today’s post come courtesy of our newest contributor Justin!
Last weekend Beer Advocate hosted their annual Extreme Beer Festival in Boston. This is easily one of the most popular beer festivals in New England, with both days selling out within hours of being on sale. They showcased over 150 different beers from brewers all over the country.
Last week Team Beeriety joined Girls Pint Out and 40 of our closest friends for a meetup at Boston’s best Scottish pub, The Haven, for a fun night of drinks, food and conversation. The night was a huge success; everyone seemed to have a great time and lots of delicious Scottish beers were enjoyed while chatting with friends both new and old.
Last Saturday Beeriety & Girls’ Pint Out got 45 of our closest friends together for a private tour of the Sam Adams Brewery in Boston. It was a great chance to see old friends, meet new ones and learn a thing or two about beer. A great time was had by all.
Beeriety and Girls’ Pint Out are teaming up for a educational early morning field trip Saturday, January 29th. Get your permission slips ready, because we’re going to the Sam Adam’s brewery!
Recently my Beeriety cohort, Alicia, and I took a trot over to Boston’s beautiful Back Bay to check out the Belgian Beer Fest at the Cyclorama. In an all-too-short three hour session, we were able to sample a wide variety of fantastic beers from some excellent American craft breweries as well as several beers fresh from Europe and Canada.
Recently some of Beeriety crew headed to lovely Chicago, IL to take in the sights, sounds and tastes of The Second City. While we were there, we got the chance to check out many of Chicago’s best beer bars and sample some of the tasty brews that we just can’t get in our home base of Boston. Here’s a quick run-down of where we went and what we drank.
