It is roughly 1,100 miles or 3.5 hours of travel time between Detroit and Denver. This doesn’t include the time before and after to get to the airport and to the final destination, so all in this could be at least a half day of traveling by air. One of the reasons I decided to make this trek recently was for The 2022 Great American Beer Festival (GABF).
The yearly festival of beer, crazy costumes, live music, and people rating fifty 1 oz pours of beer on Untappd per day. This year was special because it’s been a few years since the last festival due to COVID-19, and it was the 40th Anniversary.
Before I get into the Survival Guide portion of this post, I wanted to give big compliments to Porch Drinking. Their team data-mined and collected information about events that were going on during the weekend. Events ranged from the Krispy King Competition in Golden, Colorado, to Whalefest Rare Beer at Prost Brewing Co Denver, and Pints for Prostates rare beer tasting at the McNichols Civic Center. There were nearly 100 events that happened the week before and during the festival.
This was my first major beer festival outside of Michigan, so I’d like to give input to others looking to make the trip to this beer festival mecca.
Traveling To & From the Festival
The two big moves would be to fly into the Denver International Airport and grab a hotel that is downtown and near the convention center. There were plenty of options for both flights and hotels that weren’t too pricey.
Coming from the airport to downtown, your two options are: The A Line from Denver International Airport to Union Station for $10.50 / day OR Uber/Lyft for $50-60 after tip.
Secondary travel arrangements include Lime Scooters around town for roughly $5 / mile or bicycle carriages to ride in for various amounts depending on the driver and time of day. There is ‘okay’ public transportation around town that you can use with a day pass. It is good to know where all of the events are that you want to attend, and make a plan in advance.
Attending the Festival
In order to get a sample of beer at a beer festival in Michigan, festival goers must exchange a ticket/token for the sample, so as a Michigan native GABF provided a (welcome) surprise. Like most festivals, GABF is a free for all, all you can drink festival. The other major difference between what I’m used to and GABF was the samples were only 1 oz. There was not a rule if your wanted to get back-to-back 1 oz pours…
If you end up not liking the beer, you don’t have to drink it. The sample is only an ounce and it’s not necessary to drink the rest of it. There were dump areas at nearly every brewery to pour out the taster. It was perfectly fine to do so.
With over 2,000 beers to try at GABF, many from the Colorado area, come with a plan and be open to changing the plan. Unless absolutely necessary, don’t try and whale hunt either.
Don’t worry about checking in on Untappd to rate each beer you try. Focus on the ones you like and use the GABF app to save/rate the brews to remember for later. Enjoy the festival as a whole, you don’t need to be on your phone much while you’re there.
GABF was a huge festival, so make sure you have supportive shoes. Dress comfortably, too, because it did get a bit toasty inside the convention center.
We were allowed to bring in empty water bottles and snacks, so come prepared with those. There were water stations all over to ensure that people were hydrated.
Eating before the festival is key. There were plenty of food options at the festival but sometimes the lines were long, so plan ahead! If you eat before and eat the snacks you brought in, you should be fine. If you need to soak up the booze, best to head towards the food trucks or check out the GABF app to see what other food vendors are available. In 2022 there was an ice cream truck handing out free ice cream, a Ramen spot, and people selling churros and pizza slices.
After The Festival
Plan your ride ahead of time. Uber/Lyft, bicycle carriage, or walk back to the hotel. There were plenty of food options and things to do within the city including all of the events that coincide with the festival. Stop by local Denver breweries to support them, order from some local restaurants or street food vendors, and take in the very walk-able town.
Overall, the GABF was a smash. I enjoyed talking to fellow beer drinkers, getting NCAA updates from random people sporting their college colors, and traveling around the city going to neat and new places.
The added features of the NA area sponsored by Partake, food trucks, karaoke, costumes and, of course the beer, makes GABF a reason why its on your bucket list. After the hiatus of pretty much anything in 2020 and 2021, you shouldn’t hold off any longer!
0 Comments