Once a year the Great American Beer Festival comes to Denver, Colorado to host one of the greatest beer festivals in the world. A little secret, which has been catching on slowly, can be found at the Falling Rock Tap House during the week leading up to the GABF. Several of the top brewery’s will dig deep in their collection of kegs and pick out something very special. It might be an imperial stout that’s been sitting for four years or maybe your favorite brown ale that they placed in a bourbon barrel for a few months. Whatever it is, you can be sure that it won’t be at the GABF…only at the Falling Rock. All you have to do is jump on the Falling Rock’s website and you can see what day and time these certain special brews will be unveiled. So what I’m saying is you would have to be a god damn fool to miss this because nowhere on the planet will you find a finer concentration of beer of this caliber.

That being said, last night I went to the Falling Rock to sample brews from Day 1. On a typical Monday night the Falling Rock is a very mellow place, but this night there was definitely a buzz in the air coming from the 70 or-so people in the tap house. They have a ‘Countdown to GABF’ clock on the wall and it was finally reading 0 Months, 0 Days, 0 Hours, 0 Minutes and 0 Seconds. I went straight to the bar and asked my bartender what I need to try. The first brew was an 8 oz glass of Odell’s Imperial Stout from 2006. Two years of mellowing definitely smoothed out this stout and brought out some great chocolaty flavors. I couldn’t believe how much better this 2 year old stout was compared to the un-aged version! Definitely my fav of the night. Next came a double brown ale from Lagunitas. This one didn’t have a name…it was just some random creation from the brewer. This 8% pint smacked me in the mouth with its robust maltyness. Much more alcohol in the flavor compared to the Odell’s stout, but still damn good. My third and final brew for the night was a double IPA from Dry Dock Brewing. They brewed up this batch just for the Falling Rock and it was a nicely balance bitter has hell IPA.

There were several others that I needed to try, but it’s all about moderation during this week, otherwise you’ll blow your load prematurely and miss out on good beer.

Stay tuned for more…