09/30/2009 | Denver, beyond the beer
Ahh, back to the daily grind (or mill in my case). Just got back from Denver for the GABF and my first vacation since we broke ground in Maple Shade. It was well needed. I love you guys, but its nice to get “out of the office” once in a while. We had a great time camping and hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. The weather cooperated with us for the first two days, but on night two we got a bunch of rain and sleet that turned to snow over night. We 
decided to bag the last day of hiking due to the weather, which gave us an excuse to go down into town and drink too much beer. We revisited a town that I’d stumbled across a couple of years ago known as “the Ned” to locals (or Nederland to us lowlanders). Tiny town that has a great brewpub and we managed to find a lodge just across the creek from said brewpub. That first picture is one of the brewpub taken from 
the door of the lodge’s hot tub. Not a bad way to end a hiking trip. The next day America’s first brewing couple (Larry and Whit) left us to get ready for GABF judging and were replaced by Rick Hoffman of Stewart’s and his college buddy Janie. We wound up in Boulder where we again ate and drank to elation including my first lobster BLT. That night ended up way too late with an impromptu 80s music keyboard concert courtesy of Rick. We all 
woke up a bit groggy and after some coffee, breakfast and recovery headed down to Denver to meet up with the other couple hundred brewers that were headed into town for the fest. Then it was four nights of drinking beer, pouring beer, critiquing beer, and talking about beer. It’s really pretty hard to exaggerate how much beer there is at the GABF. We still managed to find some non-beer related entertainment though, including a great live band and a late night ice cream and burger stop. Spence from Southampton and Casey from Flying Fish were there to offer support and encouragement during my ice cream eating marathon. The band we saw (Filthy Children) was one that I’d found about four years ago when I wandered into a random bar in Denver. The bar is kind of lousy, but the band is great. When I heard they were playing that weekend I was excited to see them again. You can click here for a well-shot video that features their vocalist. Or if you want something with a grittier production quality that really shows what these guys like to do with their instruments, click here. I’d suggest doing both. OK, back to work…
I’m proud to announce that Iron Hill took another two medals at the GABF this year. Tim Stumpf of our Phoenixville location grabbed another gold for his Schwarzbier (he came right out of the gates with a gold at his first GABF last year) and Bob “the medal machine” Barrar from Media added a Silver to his vast collection for his Raspberry Torte. There’s always lots of tension in the air as the medal winners are announced as you can see in the picture. 
Iron Hill has taken something home since we first entered the GABF 14 years ago and that’s a streak we don’t want to break! So it’s all pins and needles until we get the monkey off our back and win at least one. Our neighbors at Flying Fish did great too. Casey took a well-deserved gold for his Exit Four and a bronze for Hopfish. (Pssst… There’s a rumor that the last remaining keg of Exit 4 may wind up at the Flying Fish night I’ll be hosting on the 
24th.) Congrats also to Nodding Head, Troeg’s, Dogfish Head and McKenzie’s for their wins. Great work guys!!!! You can get a complete list of all of the Great American Beer Fest winer’s 
The Great American Beer Fest starts on Thursday and I’m out here in Colorado for just that reason. I’m out here a bit early though to get a little vacation in before the “work” portion of my trip. Believe it or not I have one or two interests other than beer! Among them are camping, hiking and mountaineering. As a brewer I’m not alone in this. It seems that quite a few people in my industry are into the outdoors. I almost always fly out to Denver a few days early. 
I figure if someone else is paying for the flight I may as well piggyback a vacation. I usually find someone else in the industry to join me. Larry, our brewer in West Chester is usually a partner in crime and Brian O’Reilly of Sly Fox has joined us more than once. Last year we just missed the Niebuhr Bros of Southampton who were on their own family trip through Rocky Mountain National Park. This year’s trip will consist of me, Larry and his lovely wife Whitney 
(also a brewer, for Victory) and restaurant PR mogul and my personal publicist Jenny Hatton. We’ll be hiking in RMNP again and this year Larry was lucky or diligent enough to land us a reservation at the Glacier Gorge campsite. Once we crawl down out of the mountains we’ll make a stop in Boulder to reacclimate to society before barreling head first into four days of beer drinking. I’m looking forward to it to say the least. I
feel that sleeping on the ground a few times a year goes a long way toward keeping a person sane. Plus it’s always a good idea to burn some calories before hitting the GABF floor and consuming way too many calories. Try not to miss me too much.
Every year we send some of our best beer out to Denver to compete in the Great American Beer Fest. We’ve been sending beer to it since we started as a company and have done pretty well there over the years. We always try to send out a variety of styles and make sure that every restaurant and every brewer in the company is represented. Usually we’ll each get to pick a couple of beers that are particularly close to our hearts to send out. We also send out most of our house beers. Deciding who gets the honor of sending Iron Hill’s representation of our house beers involves another 
competition all together. Our own, in-house GABF tasting. We’ll get together and do a blind tasting of all of our house beers and decide which one to send. Now we try pretty hard and are pretty successful at, keeping our house beers pretty consistent from location to location. So deciding which is the best at competition time can come down to splitting hairs. But at the GABF judges table you often have 6 judges pitting 50 or 100 excellent beers against each other in just one category. Splitting hairs is what it’s all about. We’ll also do this with some of our seasonals. If a few of our brewers all brew a certain style that we want to send we’ll usually throw those in the panel as well. It’s all about making sure the judges taste the best we have to offer. I leave Friday for Denver. A little outdoor R&R first then off to the convention center to taste hundreds of the best beers in the planet. Please don’t drink all of my beer while I’m gone. And wish us luck!
