Best of the Fests

Beer festivals have come a long way over the past ten years. What used to be an excuse for over-consumption has become a fantastic way to sample and explore the myriad new craft offerings with friends in a social setting. The quality of beer plus diversity of breweries represented at some of the best festivals are at an all-time high. Here are some festivals that are leading the way.

Shelton Brothers The Festival

(location rotates)

No beer fest you attend will ever be the same after you spend a session or two at craft-beer importer Shelton Brothers’ The Festival. While the location rotates year-toyear (Massachusetts, Maine, and California have all hosted), what doesn’t change is the unprecedented, world-class lineup of brewers who attend. Calling it beer-geek heaven is an understatement—we enjoyed pours of Drie Fonteinen Hommage from legendary brewer/blender Armand Debelder himself, loved the Hill Farmstead saisons that Shaun Hill poured, went back for as much Treehouse Julius IPA as cofounder Dean Rohan would pour for us, grabbed pours of extremely limited Bruery beers such as Wineification and Blue BBLS, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. You could spend thousands of dollars bartering, trading, and hunting down the incredible number of amazing beers served at The Festival, but a plane ticket, hotel room, and session ticket is much more cost effective.

Great American Beer Festival

Denver, Colorado

GABF is the festival that a vocal minority seems to love to hate, but that’s only because there's nothing else like it in the world. The 49,000 attendees over four sessions sample what is the largest collection of different beers under one roof, anywhere (in 2014, that was more than 3,500 different beers). Even the most ambitious samplers could get no more than 10 percent through the beer list if they attended every session, but going for quantity misses the entire point of this craft-beer spectacle. At the 2014 edition, we enjoyed a number of heavily hyped beers, such as Toppling Goliath Assassin or Port Brewing Churchill’s Finest Hour, and the one-ounce sample was about the same amount we’d get at a bottle share with beer-trading friends. But the real fun was found in the very small breweries who attend—from the foraged gruits of Scratch Brewing (Illinois) to the progressive IPAS of Melvin Brewing (Wyoming). You’ll hear

some people complain about the size of the crowd, but in our experience over the past few years, we’ve never had to wait very long (if at all) for pours. Simple math explains it—the ratio of number of beers being poured per attendee is one of the best anywhere, so as long as you skip the line for Hunahpu’s, you can walk right up and grab a pour of The Rare Barrel sours. Then, there are the other festivals that happen concurrently in Denver the same weekend, such as…

What the Funk? Festival

Denver, Colorado

GABF is the main show, but WTF? (and Denver Rare Beer) are just as much reason to trek to Denver in the fall. What the Funk?, produced by Crooked Stave Artisans, is one of the best showcases of sour and wild beer that we’ve ever had the pleasure to attend. The beer list features such breweries as Jester King (Austin, Texas), Side Project (St. Louis, Missouri), Casey Brewing & Blending (Glenwood Springs, Colorado), Sante Adairius Rustic Ales (Capitola, California), Wicked Weed (Asheville, North Carolina), Crooked Stave (Denver, Colorado) and many more. Festivals like WTF? are a far less expensive way than trading to try their impossible-to-find, highly coveted beers. The location is killer, the Dj-driven vibe is electric, and the beer is phenomenal.

Festival of Barrel Aged Beer

Chicago, Illinois Ninety breweries, 300 barrel-aged beers. That’s one heck of a way to warm up a cold November weekend in Chicago. The town that virtually invented spirit–barrel-aged stouts is host to this yearly celebration of the art of the barrel, with everything from obscure projects such as Bourbon County Brand Stout aged for two years in Templeton Rye barrels to incredibly limited-release wild ales from Side Project (St. Louis). Given how many folks in Chicago camp out for the Bourbon County release each