We are just a few short weeks away from registration opening for the 2011 GABF. Registration will open on June 9th and your registration guidebooks will be mailing around May 26th. Please use the resources on this section of the brewers website to hopefully answer all of your questions about entering the 30th GABF.

 

A Note From the Festival Director

Greetings Brewers!

1982 – Late Night with David Letterman and Cheers debuted. ET opened at movie theatres, CATS opened an 18 year Broadway run; and “I Love Rock and Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackheart’s spent 7 weeks in Billboard’s Top 100. More importantly, the first Great American Beer Festival was held in conjunction with the Fourth Annual National Homebrew and Microbrewery Conference in Boulder. The theme: “GYLE AD GUSTUM”.

The GABF has grown from a baby rocking in the cradle into a full grown rock star filling 289,000 square feet of the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.  24 breweries poured 47 beers at the 1982 event. Compare that to 455 breweries and 2,248 beers at the 2010 GABF. We’ve come a long way, baby.

It takes a village to raise a child. To celebrate the 30th year of the GABF, we’re inviting the village of craft brewers to share memories from the journey. What is your oldest GABF memory? Did you get married at the GABF? Did you host an epic party that involved circus performers? When was your first? Was it as a brewer or as an attendee?

We want your stories. We’ll be posting stories from brewers, volunteers and attendees about their most memorable GABF experiences on the GABF website. Some of these will be included on the program guide as well. Send your stories and photos to events@brewersassociation.org with the subject line MY GABF STORY.

We are also accepting proposals for presentations in pavilions in the main hall of GABF. So if you’d like to propose a topic or be considered for participation in the Farm to Table Pavilion, send me an email at nancy@brewersassociation.org.

It’s been another fantastic year for craft beer and we can’t wait to showcase your beers to the public and celebrate 30 years of the Great American Beer Festival in style this September. Please be sure to schedule time to be at your booth to talk to guests! Attendees love being able to talk to the actual brewers/brewery representatives at the booths. It makes them feel like part of the family. So open your arms, send your best beers and help everyone join in celebrating the big 3-0!

Until September,

Nancy Johnson
Festival Director

 

From the Competition Manager

Greetings!

Welcome to the 2011 Great American Beer Festival competition. We’re looking forward to your participation in a vigorous competition and to an exciting awards ceremony on Saturday afternoon. Be sure to look over this year’s style list and the style descriptions very carefully before submitting your entry form. Based on feedback from brewers and judges there are several changes to the categories (see below) that need pointing out – don’t use last year’s category numbers!

In recent years we addressed brewer complaints regarding alcohol content of entries, both to entering brewers and at the judge panel orientation calibration session. The results were that much of the comment feedback from judges to brewers included appropriate alcohol level as a point of discussion. Please expect this trend to continue, and be sure to enter your beers in the appropriate categories.

What’s New at this year’s GABF –

US Territories Now Eligible: In response to brewery requests, commercial brewers located in US territories will be eligible to enter beers at the 2011 GABF for the first time ever. Commercial breweries located in the unincorporated, organized U.S. Territories of Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands may enter beers; entries must meet the definition of beer as defined by the TTB, and must possess the characteristics generally attributed to and conforming to the trade understanding of “beer”. Complete eligibility rules can be found on this website.

Fresh Hop Ale Entries: The somewhat later timing of this year’s GABF allows for fresh hop ales to be entered. With this in mind, brewers with fresh hop ale entries may submit them after the normal deadline. The deadline will be September 16th for Fresh Hop Ales only! All other entries must be submitted by the usual deadline; entries in other categories submitted after the deadline will NOT be judged. We’ll do our best to care for these entries, but be aware that fresh hop ale entries submitted after deadline will be sorted and handled separately from other entries, and in cases like these, “stuff happens”. The GABF will not be responsible for any mishandling of these entries.

Pouring Instructions: At this year’s GABF we’ll continue to collect pouring instructions for every entry. We began this practice last year, and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from entering brewers and judges. Please be sure to indicate your pouring preference for every entry. Your choices are “normal pouring”, “do not rouse”, “quiet pouring”, and “rouse”. If you do not specify pouring instructions, the default value of “normal pouring” will be used for your entry. What’s new this year is that pouring instructions entered during registration will be used exclusive to any markings on entry containers. You may update your pouring instructions at any time by communicating with event registrar, Chris Williams. Pouring instructions on bottles which differ from instructions in the entry database will be disregarded.

Category Updates for 2011: This year’s category list has some interesting additions and changes that I’ll point out here. We’ve added several new categories and subcategories. We’ve also shortened several category names wherever possible to make them more marketing friendly, while maintaining style identity for the consumer.
Category 4 – Fruit Wheat Beer now has its own category;
Category 5 – Renamed this category as the more marketable “Field Beer or Pumpkin Beer” to allow pumpkin beer winning entries to identify with style more closely;
Category 7 – Chocolate Beer now has its own category separate from Herb and Spice beer;
Category 14 – Indigenous Beer – replaces the “Out of Category – Traditionally Brewed Beer” category, and is totally rewritten;
Category 19 – added the exciting new American-Style Brett Ale category;
Category 29 – renamed this category for marketing purposes, adding the phrase “Premium Lager”
Category 48 – added the International-Style Pale Ale category to the GABF for the first time;
Category 57 – renamed the Extra Special Bitter subcategories, removing the word “strong” from the title, making them more TTB friendly;
Category 62 – renamed this category American-Style Black Ale;

2011 GABF Pro-Am – Based on the success of the 2010 (75 entries) GABF Pro-Am competition, we plan to continue the Pro-Am this year. This is a special competition, judged by the same professional judge panel that evaluates all GABF entries. The 2011 Pro-Am will be limited to the first 96 entries. More information can be found on this website.

I wish you a fun, successful 2011 GABF. Have fun planning your entry strategy and brewing great beer; we’ll see you in Denver this fall!

Yours Brewly,

Chris Swersey
Competition Manager