GABF 2007

Ok, so I suck!!! First of all, I left my camera in my hotel room and didn't realize it until we were standing in line at the GABF on Thursday night so I didn't get any pictures of the event. Second, I tried catching up with the Nebraska guys that were there and every time I stopped by their booths they were not around, bummer. Finally, I didn't even come close to sticking to my plan of session beers. I walked in the place and just kept seeing things I wanted to try as I walked around. So, while this was my second year, I have yet to master the art of the GABF. Next year I will bring my camera, my notebook and go to at least 2 sessions so that I can not feel this need to try everything that catches my eye and run around the place like a chicken with my head cut off.

So, the good news is I had a lot of wonderful beer, some not so wonderful beer and some down right terrible beer. I had a couple from Upstream that were very good, and I tried the Pro-Am options from both Upstream and Thunderhead and enjoyed them as well. My friends that were with me were really impressed with both breweries and enjoyed their beer very much and will more than likely frequent these places, especially since one of them lives in Lincoln. I wish I could tell you what beers I tried at Upstream but I can't...because I suck!!

I had some great highlights of the night but there were two that stood out. Within minutes of walking in the door I walk right into THE Charlie Papazian and I had to introduce myself and shake his hand. This would be the only celebrity that I have ever done this too and I have had many an opportunity to do this with Hollywood types and athletes but this guy was the guy that I felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity of shaking his hand and telling him thank you. :-)

The second highlight was going to the Beer vs Wine food pairing demo with Sam Calagione from DogFish Head and a Wine Sommelier, her name is not important. ;-) This was great, we started off with some cheddar paired with 90 minute IPA and a blush. I felt the wine actually went better with this cheese, I was about the only one though. LOL! The next was a blue cheese with a Cab and a DogFish Head Immort ale. This one was close too but the beer won out on this one for me but many felt the wine was better paired. The final one was with a dark chocolate made in Springfield, MO. The chocolate maker was there and his back story was very cool. The chocolate was paired with World Wide Stout and a sparkling Rose. WOW, what a pairing in both regards but that stout just pulled out so many flavors from the chocolate and the 20% ABV helped really do things to the chocolate the sparkling wine did not. This was a close vote too. It was a great seminar though and really showed how well beer works with food and was very entertaining because Sam was hammered and dropping curse words and dogging the wine girl constantly. He said he normally doesn't give the speech to beer audiences or at least hadn't lately and so he had to take advantage of the favorable crowd. This event was definitely the highlight of the session for me though.

All and all a great time and great beer. I meet some great people through out the whole weekend and went on some great tours. I will post some tour stories soon as well as some results. I haven't even had a chance to see if our locals walked away with anything, I hope so!!