Great American Beer

The Great American Beer Festival is held every year at the Denver city convention center.

The line wrapped entirely around the Denver Convention center, pressing steadily forward, unwinding in a spiral towards the center. A young, harried-looking young woman checked my ticket and my age before ushering me up a staircase. As I passed through the wide sets of double-doors, I was passed a plastic, half-pint cup and shuffled along into a seething mass of humanity.

The great hall was packed with every sort of person imaginable, all united in their love of good beer. Booths were arranged in an easily navigable grid, with large signs indicating sections and strategically placed caches of pretzels and water.

My cup in hand, I wound my way through the stands, collecting samples and snifters as I went. The hall smelled of salt and copper and sweat. The yellow lights left us all wandering through a dim, half-lidded, alcoholic wonderland. Periodically, there would be the loud bell-like clang of a sampling cup hitting the concrete floor, followed by a concerted outcry from the hoppy collective. The crowd would part to reveal the luckless fellow as he stooped to retrieve his mug, before being swallowed again by the drunkard leviathan.

The small drink sizes proved increasingly deceptive as the night wore on. The breweries presented beer with a wide variety of ABV's, and the small portions made it impossible to keep any accurate account of how much I'd had to drink. I simply had to rely on the speed at which the hall began to spin to gauge my drunkenness.

But eventually I was able to stumble back to my hotel room, and sleep for the next fourteen hours in order to repeat the experience the next night.