Sixpack Sez

Oct. 2, 2009 : Sips and splashes at the Great American Beer Festival

EVEN IF you could taste and swallow a one-ounce sampler every minute, it would take a day and a half of nonstop sipping to try every one of the more than 2,000 beers poured at September's annual Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Not that I didn't try.

My brain is numb and my notebook is a beer-splashed mess of smeared ink, but here are some random observations from the world's largest beer competition.

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If you want to win a medal at the Great American Beer Festival, try gaming the judging.

One way to do it: Enter your double bock as a single bock.

Troegs (Harrisburg, Pa.) has won gold in the bock category two of the last three years with its Troegenator Double Bock. Piece Brewery (Illinois) played the same gambit this year and won bronze with its aptly named Fornicator.

Another way: Forget your standbys and enter one-offs and specialties.

For the second consecutive year, Sierra Nevada - which bottles no fewer than a dozen excellent, internationally distributed ales - scored its lone medal with its Kolsch-Style Ale, a thoroughly obscure, draft-only product that I'm guessing was pulled from owner Ken Grossman's personal kegerator.

Coors took silver for its Pre-Pro Lager, a ringer that - if it were actually bottled - might prompt me to retract some of the slurs I've directed toward Golden, Colo., over the years.

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Tough luck to those who picked Pabst in their GABF pool. The conglomerate makes 30-plus brands, from PBR to Colt 45, and as recently as 2007 was named the festival's Large Brewing Company of the Year.

This year Pabst was shut out.

Fellow beer writer Stan Hieronymus won one popular online pool by selecting Pizza Port-Carlsbad (Calif.), which raked in seven medals and was named Large Brewpub of the Year.

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Brewers continue to take chances with unusual flavors. Here are six that won me over:

Baron Smoked Sour Doppelbock (Washington). Sounds like something went wrong in the fermenter, but somehow this beer works.

The Bruery Autumn Maple (California). Pumpkin pie spices and roasted yams don't exactly come to mind when I think of beer, but in this ale they complement the spicy Belgian yeast.

Cambridge Brewing The Wind Cried Mary (Massachusetts). A gruit made with freshly picked heather instead of hops.

Stewart's Old Percolator (Bear, Del.). A coffee porter made the way Mrs. Olson used to brew Folger's.

Cascade Kriek (Oregon). The flavor of real Bing cherries, not Juicy Juice, in this tart, lambic-style ale.

Shiner Holiday Cheer (Texas). A peach-flavored Christmas beer.

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Favorite beer names: Lower De Boom Barley Wine; Dude! Where's My Vespa?; Buster Nut Brown; Hell in Keller; Old Inventory; Bourbonic Plague (aged in a used bourbon barrel).

Worst beer name: Bloody Beer from Shorts Brewing (Michigan). It's made with tomatoes, not some brewer's unfortunately sliced finger.

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Heard at the festival:

"We're an 80,000-barrel-a-year brewery, but Deb still answers the phone." - Dan Carey, who owns New Glarus Brewing (Wisconsin) with his wife, Deb, on keeping in touch with customers.

"The roots of American craft brewing are really in homebrewing." - Jim Koch, founder, Boston Beer, on why his $340 million-a-year company distributes the LongShot variety package with winning recipes from homebrewers.

"We don't believe in the Reinheitsgebot." - Sam Calagione, owner, Dogfish Head Brewery (Milton, Del.), on his use of unusual ingredients that violate the so-called German Beer Purity Law. This year he served Chicha made with – honest! – boiled saliva.

"Together we can stop the spread of lite beer" - T-shirt from Half Pints Brewing (Canada).

"It's good to be a girl at a beer festival." - A woman breezing into the ladies room while chuckling at the l-o-n-g wait outside the men's room.

Local winners

Philly-area brewers topped last year's record-setting performance with 18 medals.

Nodding Head Brewing (Center City): George's Fault, silver, Specialty Honey Beer; Phruit Phunk, bronze, Wood- and Barrel-Aged Sour Beer.

Triumph Brewing (Old City): KinderPils, gold, Session Beer.

Triumph Brewing (New Hope): Hefeweizen, gold, German-Style Wheat Ale.

Flying Fish Brewing (Cherry Hill, N.J.): Exit 4, gold, American-Belgo-Style Ale; Hopfish, bronze, Classic English Style Pale Ale.

Fegley's Allentown & Bethlehem Brew Works: Rude Elf's Reserve, bronze, Herb and Spice or Chocolate Beer; BagPiper's Scotch Ale, silver, Scotch Ale.

McKenzie Brew House (Frazier): Saison Vautour, gold, French- and Belgian Style Saison.

Stoudt Brewing (Adamstown): Stoudt's Kolsch, bronze, German-Style Kölsch.

Troegs Brewing (Harrisburg): Dead Reckoning, silver, American-Style Stout; Troegenator, gold, Bock; Sunshine Pils, bronze, German-Style Pilsener.

Dogfish Head Brewery (Milton, Del.): Chateau Jiahu, gold, Specialty Beer; Palo Santo Marron, silver, Specialty Beer; Midas Touch, bronze, Specialty Honey Beer.

Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant (Media): Raspberry Torte, silver, American-Style Sour Ale.

Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant (Phoenixville): Schwarzbier, gold, German-Style Schwarzbier.

Additionally, two of the GABF's three wholesaler awards went to area distributors. These are behind-the-scenes awards that are more important to industry types than drinkers, but they're a sign of the city's strength as a beer-drinking city; after all, you wouldn't be enjoying all those off-beat brands if someone didn't import, market, stock and deliver them.

Origlio Beverage was named Wholesaler of the Year, partly for its huge portfolio of more than 400 craft beer labels. Muller Inc. earned a Recognition Award for its continued growth. Gretz Beer of Norristown was a finalist in the highly competitive awards for the second consecutive year.

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