FAQ: Breweries

Competition registration is open through July 31.
Festival booth registration has reached capacity and is now closed. Join the waitlist or email us if you have questions about festival booths.

To register for the competition, visit this link.
Festival booth registration has reached capacity and is now closed. Join the waitlist or email us if you have questions about festival booths.

To receive a refund for your festival booth, your brewery must cancel by our cancelation deadline of August 10. To receive a refund of competition entry fees, you must cancel by July 31. No refunds will be given for any cancelations after these dates. This includes instances where beers are not shipped for competition or beers are not received by the shipping deadline for judging. It is the brewery’s responsibility to track their shipments to ensure arrival in a timely manner.

The company admin for your company’s BA Membership can view this information in the company account at BrewersAssociation.org. If you are not the admin or do not know who your company admin is, please email info@brewersassociation.org or call 303-447-0816 ext. 2 and our member services team can assist you.

The company admin for your company’s BA Membership can view this information in the company account at BrewersAssociation.org. If you are not the admin or do not know who your company admin is, please email info@brewersassociation.org or call 303-447-0816 ext. 2 and our member services team can assist you.

Yes. visit our hotels page for more information.

Yes. Pouring breweries may ride the shuttle free of charge, but a reservation is required. Competition-only breweries must pay for a shuttle ticket. See shuttle info here.

Brewers Association members will receive a free booth and four credentials for pouring staff.
Sponsorship pricing for festival endcap spaces varies depending on brewery barrelage.

If you own the rights to a brand, but your beer is produced by another brewery, you are still eligible to register those beers for the festival. The brewery producing your beers must meet the brewery eligibility requirements. Enter the beers under the name of your brand, not the name of the brewery at which your beers are produced.
Enter the TTB Basic Permit/Brewers Notice number of the brewery producing the beer on your registration entry.

Yes! You can register to participate in the festival without having any entries in the competition. You might not come home with a medal, but you will gain new fans.

If you are planning to send draught beer or cider, we recommend using the free MicroStar keg program to have kegs shipped directly to you. You can then drop those full kegs or packaged product at one of our 25+ festival drop off points and we will take care of the shipping from there.

When you register for a booth at the festival, you receive up to four (4) comped brewer credentials. If you would like to purchase additional credentials, paid credentials will be available via the brewers Eventbrite portal when tickets go on sale on June 25, 2026. More information about purchasing additional credentials is available here.

The Brewers Happy Hour is onsite at Levitt Pavilion, Friday, Oct. 9 from 3:30-5:30pm.

We will have a festival layout ready soon to show the intended booth layout and bathroom locations.

Each inline pouring space will consist of a six-foot table. The draught equipment will be in the back of the space. Signage indicating brewery name, previous medal win, etc. will be hung from a cable in the rear of the space. Breweries are welcome to bring their own branded tablecloth, sell sheets, etc. to provide more information on the beers they are pouring. Or, download these editable pour sign templates.

All inline booths will be under large tents; breweries will be organized by region and then alphabetically within each region to the best of our ability.

All breweries will be organized by region, but medal winners will have additional recognition onsite.

GABF 2026 focuses on beer and cider. Participating inline breweries and cideries will have the option to pour one non-beer/cider product that they produce (seltzer, kombucha, soda, or RTD), but there will be no booths pouring solely non-beer/cider products. Sponsor booths may opt to pour more than one non-beer product. There will be no spirits at the 2026 festival.

We invite all brewers to decorate their booths! We do ask that you review our guidelines for displays and promotional materials as well as our Code of Conduct and Marketing & Advertising Code while planning your booth space, as we strive to provide an environment free of offensive language or booth décor that perpetuates any harmful stereotypes. The Brewers Association retains sole discretion to determine eligibility for the Great American Beer Festival. 

We do not plan to place mats over the grass.

Yes, there will be water to rinse.

We plan to have volunteers and staff available to assist with emptying dump buckets.

After the Saturday session, remaining draught beer will be iced in keg barrels overnight and will be replenished before the Sunday session. All other product will remain on refrigerated trucks. The venue will have a secure perimeter and overnight security.

The awards ceremony takes place on the main stage at Levitt Pavilion during the Sunday festival session. If you plan to attend the awards, coordinate coverage of your booth or place a “be back soon” sign at your space if you wish to have your entire staff attend the ceremony or receive an award. Breweries are responsible for staffing their booths through the duration of the festival.

Load-out will vary based on the size of your setup. We’re still working through details, but are planning to queue cars up at several locations to pick up materials. We will have some staff and volunteer support and utility carts to help move larger items to the pickup locations.

All entries must possess the characteristics generally attributed to and conforming to the consumer understanding of “beer” or “cider.” View our eligibility requirements here.

Yes. The facility producing your beers must meet our brewery eligibility requirements. See full eligibility requirements here.

In an effort to address concerns regarding sexually explicit, lewd, or demeaning brand names that reasonable adult consumers would find inappropriate, beer names entered into the GABF are expected to meet the guidelines in the Brewers Association Marketing and Advertising Code.
Beer or cider names that do not meet the Marketing and Advertising Code will not be allowed to use the GABF trademark/logos or name to promote any medal winning brand. Additionally, those brand names will not be marketed by the Brewers Association.
What you need to know:
GABF will not police brand names prior to competition.
GABF reserves the right to make final determination of approval for any brewery using GABF intellectual property when promoting medal-winning beverages.
GABF reserves the right to make final determination (via an independent advertising code review panel) of whether a brand meets the Advertising and Marketing Code.
If a brand name is deemed to not meet the code, only the style of the beverage (and not the actual beverage name) will be announced on stage and published in the winners list.
In the event that the brand name of a medal-winning beverage entered in the GABF competition is found to not meet the Marketing and Advertising Code, the brewery or cidery that entered the medal-winning beverage is entitled to keep the medal earned within the GABF category in which the beverage was entered but is not allowed to promote the win.

Each brewery or cidery is expected to be allowed to enter up to 20 beverages, based on availability (in other words, this could increase or decrease, based on the interest we have in the competition). Read more details here. See more info here to help you determine how your company should be entered for Brewery of the Year.

No. Each brand may be entered only once. Pick the best category for that beverage.

Yes! As long as it’s not the same beer or cider…that would be weird.

Enter your beverage information directly after your register, during the registration window.

To view your competition entries go to gabfregistration.com and log in with your BA login credentials. You will then be rerouted to your competition entries to review and make any needed changes until the change deadline.

Visit this page and log in with your brewery 4-digit ID and email address.

That depends on the category, as some categories may be full. To attempt the change, log in to the GABF Brewer Login using your 4-digit GABF Brewery ID and your associated email address.

Only certain categories allow for additional notes for judges (see style guidelines). Assuming the category you’ve entered allows for this, log in to GABFRegistration.com and make the edits via the online style-builder. If your beverage is entered in a category that does not allow for additional judging info, consider switching to a category that allows for this if this information is crucial to judging, or leave it where it is without the additional information for judging.

Yes, breweries will receive tasting notes either electronically or via snail mail within 1 month after the competition.

The 2026 GABF awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, Oct. 11 at 12:30pm on the main stage at Levitt Pavilion. The ceremony will occur during the festival and is open to the public. All awards ceremony attendees must have a festival ticket. Competing breweries have the option to purchase up to four discounted Sunday tickets, but quantity is limited. We recommend purchasing your tickets early. Check your competition registration confirmation for information about purchasing discounted tickets.

Learn more about the competition.

Learn more about the Brewery of the Year categories.

See more info here to help you determine how your company should be entered for Brewery of the Year.
Both scenarios allow you to enter beverages from all locations, but they differ in how this all factors into Brewery of the Year awards.

Brewery Group was originally introduced as a way to allow multiple brands or locations compete without having to share entries under the entry cap. Since the entry cap has been removed starting in 2026, breweries with multiple locations are not forced to register multiple locations separately, and instead can register all entries under the banner of the overall brand. All breweries or locations will compete at the brewery of the year category for the overall production volume of the entire company.

It depends on the size of the individual format you’re sending (12oz bottles/cans, 22oz bottles, crowlers, etc.), as well as the category the beer or cider is entered in (large categories, such as IPAs and some wood/barrel-aged categories require more since there are more rounds of judging needed).
See a complete breakdown of how much you should be sending.

Yes, you’ll find specific competition labels that should be used in your brewery portal here. To ensure accuracy in sorting and judging, please only use these labels.

Nope, judging for GABF is done blind, meaning there’s no need to remove your labels from your bottles/cans before sending in. Just make sure you’ve put our competition labels on each bottle/can and be sure to review all labeling info here.

By far, the best bet is to team up with other nearby breweries or even your local guild to create a freight shipment direct to Colorado. Barring that, UPS and FedEx are acceptable options, but know that unless you have a business account that allows for shipping alcohol, they may not allow you to ship your beer or cider. DO NOT ship entries using the US Postal Service as it is illegal. More information here.

You may find it easier to schedule a pickup from your home, instead of taking it into a store or having it picked up from the brewery. It may also help to remove any mention of your brewery or beer on the box (instead of Great American Beer Festival, use “GABF”).

See tips for packaging your entries here.