Great American Beer Fest Winners

This years Great American Beer Fest has come and gone. Based on the tweets and Facebook status updates, it seems a great time was had by everyone. To be honest, I tried to limit my exposure to these since I knew it would do nothing but cause extreme jealousy. But it's over and life is returning to normal for those that attended (which will hopefully include me next year!).

Although California and Colorado took home the majority of awards (56 and 42, respectively. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking I need to move out west!), PA breweries rounded out the top 5 list with 9 medals. Congratulations to Iron Hill, Troegs, Triumph, McKenzie Brew House, and Stoudt's for their wins! I'd like to send out an extra-special congratulations to Weyerbacher for their win in the Field Beer category (even though they were up against Prism!) with their Imperial Pumpkin. If you've never tried this beer, you really need to and not just because they won at GABF. It's one of my favorite pumpkin beers and I imagine I'm going to be seeing it on a lot more taps with this exciting win.

On a personal note, I heard that traffic to the Prism booth was steady on both days and that the beer was favorably received. Best of all, I understand that the guys from Lost Abbey and Russian River specifically came by to try our beers. They said that both were really good and that they liked what we were doing! These guys are responsible for some of my favorite beers, and knowing that they appreciate the work that the Prism brewers are doing was great to hear. Hopefully next year I'll be writing about our wins at GABF!

In the meantime, for a full list of this year's winners, click here.

Tears in Our Beers

The Great American Beer Fest (GABF) is upon us and sadly I'm not there. Last year I was really just starting to get in to the whole beer scene and so not attending didn't really affect me. This year is another story. So many of my Twitter and Facebook friends are there (or on their way) that I feel I may need to stay off of those two platforms until Monday or risk a disproportionate amount of jealousy. I mean, it's not like I can't enjoy a beer or two myself in my fair city.

To that end, some great minds on Twitter (@beerforthedaddy and @thedailypint) started discussing having a virtual toast for those of left behind on the fun happening in CO. It started off as a joke, but quickly caught on. I love the idea and plan on partaking. If you'd like to, too, here are the details:

When:
Thursday Sept. 16th at 7:30 PM EST
Saturday Sept. 18th at 8:30 PM EST

To join in, just check in on Twitter with the beer you're drinking and the hashtags #noGABF4us and #tearsinourbeerstoast.

Cheers!