Sixty Thousand Friends You've Never Met

Another year at the nation's largest beer festival and some beers in the air

I’m on board a flight to Denver as I write this, and I’m grateful to be sipping a Bell’s Oberon while 36,000 feet in the air. This reminds me of flying out to Denver for Great American Beer Festival back in 2015, when I was sitting in First Class on Delta, and the owner of a New York craft brewery was sitting directly behind me. When the flight attendant was taking pre-departure drink orders, he asked what beers they offered. “We have Miller Lite, Blue Moon, and Heineken,” she described.

“Can I get a Heineken,” he responded, then adding: “but can I get it really, really cold?”

A really cold Heineken is what passed for enjoyable beer on an airline in those days.

The beer selection on board airlines in the United States has greatly improved over in the nine years since, though it seems there are still some who still haven’t gotten the message. Here’s what’s on the menu on the nation’s airlines as of today, knowing that it can vary from route to route and season to season:

Alaska: New Belgium Fat Tire Ale, Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing IPA
Allegiant: Bud Light, Stella Artois, Modelo, Michelob Ultra, Corona Extra, Goose Island IPA
American: Bud Light, Dos Equis, Heineken, Goose Island IPA
Breeze: Bud Light, Heineken, Golden Road Mango Cart Wheat Ale
Delta: Miller Lite, Bell’s Oberon, Sweetwater 420 Extra Pale Ale, Sweetwater Hazy IPA
Frontier: Bud Light, New Belgium Fat Tire Ale, New Belgium Voodoo Ranger IPA
Hawaiian: Maui Brewing Company Bikini Blonde, Heineken
JetBlue: Bud Light, Sam Adams Wicked Hazy IPA, Stella Artois, Athletic Upside Dawn Golden Ale
Southwest: Miller Lite, Lagunitas IPA, Kona Big Wave Golden Ale
Spirit: Bud Light, Heineken, Sam Adams Wicked Hazy IPA
Sun Country: Michelob Golden Light, Fulton Sweet Child of Vine IPA, Fulton Lonely Blonde
United: Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois, Goose Island 312 Lemonade Shandy, Kona Big Wave Golden Ale

Those airlines without an IPA (looking at you, United) — what are you even doing? When you’re up in the air and your senses are diminished, the hoppier and more flavorful the beer, the better. In fact, Sweetwater’s Hazy IPA on Delta claims to be specifically formulated to account for your weakened senses of taste and smell. Not to mention that it’s by far the best-selling craft beer style in the US. From a pure business standpoint, if you’re going to have one token craft beer option for sale on your plane, how is it not an IPA?

Previewing this year’s Great American Beer Festival

This weekend, the country’s largest beer festival and beer competition takes place in Denver, Colorado. The Great American Beer Festival, which gathers more than 500 breweries from across the country in a 500,000-square foot convention center to host more than 60,000 beer drinkers over three days, is a dizzying experience. I’ve attended every iteration of GABF since 2009, though the festival itself celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. I’ve watched it evolve over time, trying to stay relevant in an era when there’s waning popularity for craft beer.

The last few years (putting aside 2020 and 2021, when there wasn’t a festival for obvious reasons) have seen the festival include more gluten-free options, dramatically more non-alcoholic options, and this year, for the first time in its 41-year history, a handful of international beers. The festival will also feature a space dedicated to the new National Black Brewers Association, offering beers from Black-owned breweries around the country. Returning this year after a brief absence is the state guild pavilion, which allows brewers guilds representing various parts of the country to feature beers that wouldn’t otherwise be poured at the fest.

One criticism lobbed at the festival is that it’s not necessarily geographically representative for an event called the Great American Beer Festival. I’ve joked that it should be called the Great Colorado and California Beer Festival, as nearly a third of the breweries pouring are from those two states alone. In fact, more breweries from Colorado will be attending the event than breweries from the entire Eastern Time Zone. Some of this is merely a sound financial decision — it’s much easier for local breweries to attend a festival in Denver than for breweries to trek across the country and pay travel and lodging expenses for an event largely attended by people from Colorado.

That being said, there are still five breweries from New York State pouring on the festival floor this year, with more breweries featured in the State Guild Pavilion at the New York State Brewers Association booth. Gun Hill Brewing Co. in the Bronx is the only New York City brewery with its own booth this year, though the State Brewers Association will also pour beers from Other Half and Strong Rope. Elsewhere in the state, Buried Acorn in Syracuse, FX Matt in Utica, and Keegan Ales in Kingston will also have their own booths, and Necromantic Brew Co in Farmingdale will pour in the Gluten-Free Garden.

The other big draw of GABF is its competition, which last year included nearly ten thousand different beers across nearly a hundred categories, judged by a team of more than two hundred experts from around the world. GABF medals are still coveted — thousands of breweries entering beers from across the country can’t be wrong (breweries don’t have to attend or pour at the festival to enter the competition). And before you think that awards don’t matter, they definitely matter to the brewers. The expressions of excitement I see when a winning brewery’s name is announced in the concert hall where the award ceremony is held are overwhelming, especially when a brewery wins multiple medals in the same year.

Last year, New York breweries collectively won just two medals, the fewest in the GABF competition since 1996. They’ll look to avenge that disappointing showing this year when awards are announced on Saturday.

Brewery Tracker

Total brewery count: 3,184
Total breweries visited in 2023: 289
Total breweries visited in Colorado: 241

Brewery Visit of the Week

Brewery #158, Black Shirt Brewing Co., Denver, Colorado (Visited 9-Nov-2013)

There were already dozens of breweries in the Denver area by 2013 when I made my first visit to Black Shirt Brewing. And even a decade ago, it was hard to stand out in a crowded market. Many spots were already starting to specialize in their approach to beer, offer a unique selling point to their taproom, or just try to enamor itself to the neighborhood to become a family-friendly and dog-friendly third space. Black Shirt’s gimmick when they opened in 2012 was: they were going to make dark beers. And only dark beers.

“What a dumb idea,” I said to my friend at the time as we headed to their taproom.

Now, look, I can’t entirely blame them. It was the heyday of the Black IPA. If you could even sell hoppy dark ales to a subset of beer geeks, then you could conceivably make that a successful business model in a city as beer-centric as Denver. But thankfully, they came to their senses in a few years. The beer got far more varied and Black Shirt found another niche: music. Anchoring the north end of a vibrant, artsy neighborhood, live music became the brewery taproom’s calling, and remains a key part of the vibe here.

Since Denver is practically my second home, it’s not surprising that I’ve watched Black Shirt evolve over time. It’s a convenient stop when I’m taking the train in from the airport, as it’s just two blocks from the A Line at 38th & Blake. And I’m glad I can drink a German Pilsner or a Hoppy Amber at Black Shirt these days. Those go down much easier.

The Weekly Reader

• A Jersey brewery is blaming its closure on the state’s archaic beer laws [Alfred Lubrano, Philly Inquirer]

• Behind the best-selling beer only available in one US state [Jacqueline Kehoe, Good Beer Hunting]

• Buckle in for a vivid, beer-filled ride on the longest tram line in the world [Eoghan Walsh, Belgian Smaak]

• A reminder that it’s okay to not be okay [David Nilsen, PorchDrinking]

One More Thing

As I embark on a weekend of 4-and-a-half-hour long beer festival sessions, I’d like to say that this year was a turning point for me when it comes to these sorts of events: you don’t need to stay for the whole thing. Don’t feel obligated to stay at a beer festival if you’re tired, emotionally drained, socially overstimulated, drunk, or any combination of the above. It’s one thing I’ve taken to heart as I’ve gotten older: moderation and a focus on self-care are hard to preserve at an event like this, so try your hardest. Last year was the first time I stepped out of a GABF session before it was over, and to be happily in bed by 10:30pm when others were still waiting for their Uber ride to navigate post-festival traffic in downtown Denver was a great feeling. Tread carefully and be well.

Along with that advice, a reminder that next weekend, there’s a beer festival much closer to home: the New York City Brewers Guild’s Blocktoberfest at Industry City is next Saturday, September 30th from noon-5pm. Tickets are still available, so get them now.

Cheers,
Chris