When I first decided to go to Great American Beer Festival this year, I did not know what I was getting myself into. Sure, I’ve been to Texas Craft Brewers Festival and Big Texas Beer Fest, but I (nor my liver) was not ready for the most epic brewery festival in the US.
Everyone says to have a plan. My friend Caitlin, Big World Small Girl, who had gone once before had shared her tips and advice on attending GABF. Whoops, I had ignored that! Thankfully she was there to show me around night one as well. I’m going to help you come up with a plan from my experience!
Pre-gaming for GABF at Cerebral Brewing with Big World Small Girl
My previous post was about our adventure in Fort Collins & Greeley to get us prepped for our two days of the festival. We stayed with some friends we knew from Austin that previously moved to the Denver area, so we had some locals to take us around to brunch spots to fill up on before going out to fest (including Denver Biscuit Company & Syrup – must try!).
We chose Friday night & Saturday afternoon sessions, which were about 4 hours each. Friday night was dedicated to scoping out the entire convention center to figure out our plan of attack. What I would advise is make sure to download the GABF app and review all of the breweries participating and which brews you’d like to try. You can create a list to track what you’re interested in! What was the most helpful was understanding the regions at the convention center. If you’re looking to try a beer from Texas, you would find those breweries nestled into “Southwest Region”.
Had to stop by fellow Austinites ABGB for Industry Pils!
One of the most surprising sections of GABF was that Jameson Caskmates had a festival setup within the festival. There were 22 different brewery partners that collaborated with Jameson all within one section to highlight their partnership in barrel aging beer with Jameson Irish Whiskey barrels.
Jameson Caskmates area with 22 brewery partners
We got through maybe less than half of the entire convention center just in Friday night. There were so many beers to be tasted and sites to take in that we were so glad that we had day two.
Figtoberfest from Figueroa Mountain (I was excited to try this brewery because my maiden name is Figueroa!)
If you get the chance to attend, make sure to have an American Homebrewers Association membership to join the members only session for Saturday afternoon. Kegs start to kick by the end of the session & you get to be a part of the celebration following the awards ceremony. Make sure to arrive early, and by early I mean at least one hour early. The corrals start lining up probably at least two hours early to get into the convention center.
Thousands of people lining up in corrals waiting for their turn to pour in.
Pick a side to conquer! Utilize the regions & figure out what top breweries you want to hit up, especially if you have had a chance to be a previous session. Find where you want to spend your time, four hours flies by when you’re drinking award winning beer!
The basic in me had to try this beer from Mirror Image. It tasted exactly the perfect balance of a PSL!
Take photos of the beers you have tried & want to remember. I didn’t even bother with using untapped for GABF because it was an overwhelming amount of tastings. By the end of the session, your palate may be wrecked. It’s also a good idea to wear your snacks and build pretzel necklaces ahead of time. Don’t be shy with just adding pretzels, utilize fruit snacks, beef jerky, cheese, chocolate, or whatever else you can string onto your necklace!
Hanging out at the Black Husky booth, reppin’ my Milwaukee roots!
GABF is definitely a festival you need to experience more than once. There’s so much to do in Denver including GABF pre/after parties and also many options to go to breweries that are available all around town. My advice is to plan at least four to five full days and at least two sessions for GABF. The experience & unlimited beer pays for itself instantly. Why not get together with thousands of other craft beer lovers from around the country to celebrate some of the best craft beer there is out there? Make a fun vacation out of it with your fellow craft beer friends and start planning for next fall!
Cheers!
-Cheryl 🍻
Our 
mbroidery
As both beer lovers and dog lovers, our favorite event of the year is 
Early one Saturday morning, Cheryl and Kimberly traveled out to East Austin to participate in The Color Run. This was like no other 5k they had run before. There wasn’t a drop of competition in the air. Everyone went out there to simply have fun. They participated in Zumba for a warm-up before crowding into the gates with what seemed like millions of people and inched forward every few minutes. The girls finally got to the front of the gates where they were able to see what was going on.
brewery has an industrial barn feel, with the salty smell of the brewery mom’s freshly made secret recipe popcorn. They are already canning 3 of their mainstays, but the real show stopper is their coffee lager, which despite my begging and pleading, is not leaving the brewery for a while. The perfect balance of lager and coffee had all of us going back for seconds and thirds! The anniversary party had great live music, food trucks, wonderful family friendly atmosphere and awesome glassware from Salado Glassworks made special for their Village Idiot Rye Beer. We highly recommend taking the little trip to Salado, Texas, enjoy a cold beer at Barrow and don’t miss out on the awesome antique shops on the town square!
The one thing Kimberly broke the rules of her 21 day challenge for was the release of her favorite cidery’s new flavor. On April 5, Austin Eastciders held their first release party for their blood orange cider at Easy Tiger. Kimberly was so excited for the release that she knew she had to make one exception and indulge herself. She showed up 30 minutes early and waited until they could start serving. Plus, she was third in line!! Along with $4 cans, they were giving out blood orange koozies and Austin Eastciders bandanas, how could you beat that?!
delicious craft beer in Austin. April’s meet up was at Lazarus Brewing on the east side. We’ve written about their soft and grand opening and we’re happy to report they’re still amazing. Their beer lineup is always changing, this time Cheryl enjoyed a Nitro Coffee Brown Ale called Ransom. They also have some of the best authentic tacos in Austin so don’t hesitate to come thirsty and hungry. The meet up happened to be during a 
Among many other adjuncts are a Peanutbutta Stout with tons of peanut butter, Cocoa Reaper Stout with fresh and spicy Reaper Peppers packing tons of heat yet subdued somehow with mellow hints of chocolate, Maple Coffee Stout that tastes like breakfast, and the most Texas stout ever – Pecan Cocoa Stout with fresh Texas pecans and a light chocolate taste. But don’t be fooled by the hard hitting starting line up of stouts – this brewery has it going on in all the right places!
before the store officially opened so she got to be in the first set of people to be inside the store. Everyone who entered was greeted with an iced sugar cookie in the shape of Texas and then headed straight to Juiceland. There were tables setup throughout the store handing out samples such as sushi, beer from Hops and Grain and cider from Austin Eastciders, coffee from Chameleon. But the jackpot was over at Easy Tiger where they had sandwiches, sausages, pretzels, beer cheese, and at least six beers on tap. It was amazing! And all free. Though it was difficult being able to walk around and see what the store had to offer and not be able to purchase anything since they weren’t open for business yet.
2017’s Spring and Summer 
San Antonio, Texas has lots of amazing beer to offer. Our favorite spot of the trip was at The Pearl where we enjoyed lots of amazing beer from Southerleigh Brewing, most notably their Margarita Gose. The brewery is located in the old San Antonio Brewers Association building and features many old Brewing machines and pictures like a brewing museum! They also offer the best brunch in town.
Next stop on our beer travels brought us to Denver, Colorado. Some may say Denver is one of the beer capitals of the country, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Our first day in Denver, we enjoyed drinking all the special Yeti’s we could find at the Barrel Bar at Great Divide. A quick walk across the street will take you to The Source, an incredible collection of restaurants, butchers, cheese shops, florists, and above all, Crooked Stave. The mother of the sour beer exceeded all expectations, and of course we came home with quite a few bottles. We spent a week in Winter Park, Colorado, enjoying some fresh spring snow before spending our last day back in Denver.
core with a friendly skeleton greeting you as you walked in, beakers for flight tasting, and Petri dishes full of elements to learn about inside the community tables. They certainly have their beer science down as well.
Happy 6th Anniversary to Circle Brewing! We attended the big party in style after one of our own, Brittany, won a free ticket to the festivities from our friends at 
a packed weekend full of great beer!
It’s that time of year again! Jester King released their third batch of Colour Five, a sour beer blended with refermented blueberries. The color of this beer is beautiful – a deep dark violet that is tart and full of blueberry flavors.
he last weekend of March, Jester King released Rare Corals – a farmhouse ale refermented with guava, bananas, strawberries, cantaloupe, toasted coconut, and chamomile. The strongest flavors we tasted were the guava, cantaloupe, and the chamomile. Any time there is tea in beer, we immediately gravitate towards it. This definitely had a funky taste, yet was super smooth to drink on a hot day.
Bell’s is finally in Texas! This Michigan brewery debuted March 1st in Texas distributing a full line up like Two Hearted and Kalamzoo Stout. We went to The Brass Tap at The Domain to celebrate their debut where they had complementary Two Hearted glasses to take home with a purchase of a pint.
Spring brought with it the Spring Dream 
and Beer Garden for a monthly Mega Mutt Monday! This month the event was all about pit bulls, as it was themed The Pits of Spring. Bangers joined forces with Love-a-Bull Pit Bull Rescue to raise funds for their great organization. Kimberly and Jared enjoyed a delicious dinner accompanied by a couple rounds of beers while listening to the band Steel Betty.
Waking up in Louisiana in mid to late February feels cool and dreary, with the remnants of winter clinging onto the grey skies until the afternoon sun, in alliance with the river, teases the warmth and heavy humidity of the coming spring. If you live around uptown and St. Charles avenue, your daily coffee and chicory is sipped to the tune of local high school marching bands warming up for their second lines. This can mean only one thing: it’s Carnival season in New Orleans.
Ghost in the Machine, which was incidentally the first beer introduced to Kimberly at a couple Carnival’s past. She was eager to score a few bottles of Ghost, but alas! Parish was featuring a different rotation this time of year. Kimberly enjoyed a version of their wheat ale, Canebrake, blended with fresh strawberries, and finished the visit with a Flora Genesis dry-hopped sour. Also on tap was Rêve Coffee Stout, a beautifully blended sweet stout using beans from acadiana’s own Rêve Coffee Roasters.
Upon entry, you’re greeted by one massive open space, stretching from the spacious taproom in front to the production floor in back. Both are separated by a row of comfortable theater seats paying homage to the building’s storied past. Due to the wide-open facility, there is nothing to hide in this brewery’s process, and it’s no secret the beer is world-class. Amazingly, while only open three months, Wayward Owl featured almost 10 taps, including a barrel-aged scotch and Kimberly’s favorite: the DoKtor – a saison with coconut a limes served on nitro.
Next in line was Urban South, a brewery nestled in the warehouse district along the east bank of the Mississippi. Kimberly and Jared were fortunate to visit this brewery in the summer last year, and no trip to New Orleans is complete without a pit stop to sample this young breweries offerings. Kimberly chose a round of their Charming Shandy – a succulent blend of Charming Wit and Urban’s own fresh lemonade. Luckily, they visited early enough to still catch the Rectify coffee porter – a winter seasonal that is equal-parts toasty and chocolaty.
Mid-February, Cheryl traveled to the Bay Area with her hubs on a rainy weekend an explored various breweries and made a stop at Napa. Conveniently, she arrived during the tail end of San Francisco Beer Week. First stop was The Rare Barrel in Berkeley where they had a cellar release. We then ventured into Oakland to Drake’s Dealership where we stumbled upon a small beer festival that was unfortunately sold out, but we still were able to snag some food and a few beers.
After riding the BART back to San Francisco, we stopped in The Mission to go to Almanac’s new tap room. Since it was San Francisco Beer Week, their event focused on their Grand Crus. Our favorite was a Grand Cru in red wine barrels with vanilla, took some back to Texas! Our last stop after Almanac was Tripe Voodoo Brewing in Dogpatch where wine barrel aged beer was all over the menu.
Sunday and Monday were dedicated to travels outside of San Francisco. Sunday we went to Napa where we spent the rainy day at beautiful wineries like Artesa, Domaine Chandon, and Girard Winery. Our favorite wine was the Tempranillo from Artesa, which had a beautiful property and felt like you were someone in the United Kingdom.
Located just by the Austin Airport, Hi Sign Brewing is a brand new member to the Austin brewery scene. Of their core-four beers, the New England IPA and the Blood Orange Coffee Stout stand out among the others. Their hopes to bring attention to the style and elevate the style in Texas is certainly something we are looking forward to. The brewery is very large with plenty of room to either grow or have large events. Owner, Mark, gave us a private tour of the brewing set up and gave some insight into his brewing passion. Its very clear that Hi Sign is coming into the Austin scene strong. We are looking forward to great things from them.
The long awaited tap room from Austin Beerworks is finally here, and better than we could have ever hoped for. Not only can you just buy a single beer now (why would you want to though?) but there is tons of seating indoors and out to enjoy your beer, hang out with your pups, and even play a board game. The design of the new taproom is magnificent and the branding of ABW is consistent throughout the building. It is as if you were standing inside one of their cans, looking out. The live edge picnic tables were teeming with hundreds and hundreds of people from families, groups of friends, and people with their pets. It is clear this new space opens them up as a better event venue as well. We look forward to all the good things to come from this new tap room!
With a few locations around North Dallas, Taps and Caps offers an amazing selection of beers not just to enjoy in their bar, but in crowlers, and growlers of all sizes to go! Instead of a standard chalkboard telling you what is on tap, they have a live digital menu showing beer, beer type, brewery, what color the beer is, and the prices of each different size the beer is. But best of all, it tells you how much is left in the keg! So when you see something getting low, get a pour fast or you will be missing out! If you find yourself in the DFW area, this is a must go to bar!
This month, 
true and Sprinkles has finally opened at the 
Basics and Beer 