Once upon a time, the Crew was all about the Great American Beer Festival. One or more of us was there every year between 2016-19, plus 2022 when it returned after the pandemic.

Since then? Eh, not a high priority on our annual calendar. It’s not necessarily the fault of the event itself. Surge pricing in Denver during the event for everything from hotels/Airbnbs to Uber/Lyft rides has gotten downright ridiculous.

As for the event itself, well, the number of New Mexico breweries attending has continued to shrink. Heck, the number of breweries not from Colorado has begun to dwindle in recent years. Market contraction, sure, but even some of the bigger national craft breweries have decided it’s an unnecessary expense.

GABF is for the fans of craft beer, whereas the Craft Brewers Conference is for the industry folks. With budgets shrinking at breweries across the country, many places can only afford to send staff members to one.

That aforementioned surge pricing makes attendance even more difficult. We cannot blame the companies for trying to take advantage of a captive market (see the Balloon Fiesta here in terms of hotel costs, or even a bigger event like Oktoberfest, and please do not ask what I paid for a single Uber ride there) but damn if it’s not a deterrent to taking time off to go up there.

This year only Bow & Arrow, Ex Novo, La Cumbre, Quarter Celtic, The 377, and the New Mexico Brewers Guild have booths on the convention center floor at GABF. Little Toad Creek is pouring their Mixed Up canned cocktails brand there, as part of an effort by the Brewers Association to bring in more craft beverage producers to fill the gaps and continue to encourage attendance by a public whose tastes are changing when it comes to alcohol products.

While the event is in flux, at least the awards ceremony continues apace. We do not have a list of New Mexico breweries that submitted beers to the competition this year, but that’s only because we almost forgot GABF was even happening (blame the jet lag) and failed to ask before everyone hit the road or caught a flight to Denver.

The ceremony is Saturday at 10 a.m., and will be broadcast live online. The Crew will still cover it remotely, and since many of the winning breweries are often still in New Mexico instead of Colorado, we should be able to try and reach out to get an immediate response even more easily than if we were wandering around the convention center looking for interviews.

Pardon the Friday ramblings, but we just mainly wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of the awards ceremony, and felt like sharing our two cents about how we view the struggles of the festival part of GABF. If you have your own views on the past, present, and future of America’s largest craft beer event, please share in the comments.

Until then, we have to get to work catching up on all the beers we’ve missed while on the other side of the Atlantic.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister