DRAFT at GABF 2009: Hangover edition
• Sep 27th, 2009 • Category: GABF 2009
Last Call for GABF '09 (Photo by Charlie Papazian)
So, how’s your liver feeling today?
The 2009 Great American Beer Festival has come and gone, leaving thousands of beer drinkers with fuzzy memories, queasy flights home and some much-needed detox time.
So until next year, we here at DRAFT will leave you with some memories from GABF ‘09 (in no particular order):
A guy wandering the convention center floor holding a single ski.
Port-o-Pong
The Port-o-Pong inflatable pool raft for beer pong.
The raucous cheering every single time someone drops their glass on the floor. Which is approximately every 15 seconds. Heeeeeeeeeyyyyy!!!
Girls getting cheered when they sneak into the line for the men’s room.
A dude getting ganged up on and the crap beat out of him when he snuck into the girl’s restroom line (story via my friend Erin).
Afterparties all over LoDo and lines out to the street for Falling Rock.
One of the festival’s absolute best IPA’s coming from… Cleveland? (And it wasn’t from Great Lakes Brewery, either.)
Get thee to a nunnery
Photo ops with strangers in costumes. Including the occasional drunk fake clergy.
Randomly running into your roommate from freshman year of college.
Drinking Mickey’s from the MillerCoors booth… because when else are you going to sample 1 ounce of malt liquor?
Overhearing “I haven’t been able to taste anything for 2 1/2 hours.”
PBR PJs
Pabst Blue Ribbon pajamas.
Having the Sex Show 2009 held right next door inside the Denver Convention Center.
The X-Communicated Mormon drinking team.
The utter dominance of Colorado breweries.
Drunken Journey karaoke, prompting one observer to ask, “What the f— did I do to deserve this?”
$8.75 BBQ beef sandwiches that were worth every last penny.
The mad rush for half an ounce of Sam Adams Utopias.
The obligatory Elvis costume.
Alaskan Brewing Company smoked porter… so delicious.
Rogue’s cocoa, ginger and rum balls — which tastes a lot better than that sounds.
Penguins with mustaches.
A brewer pouring a sample and toasting “to honor,” and then telling a pun way too dirty to repeat here.
Getting your photo with rock star brewers.
The Oskar Blues silent disco.
Knowing that it’s all going to start again in 360 days.
– Tim Cigelske
