Brewers get their due at GABF

The beer celebrities - the Garrett Olivers, the Sam Calagiones - get most of the attention and adulation in the beer world.

But at the Great American Beer Festival - the premier festival and competition for all American beer, held annually in early autumn in Denver, Colorado - good beer fans often have the opportunity to meet the less famous folk, those who do most of the heavy lifting behind the scenes - the brewers who brew the beers, day after day.

And, likewise at the GABF, those brewers and brewery workers get a well-deserved opportunity to be acknowledged.

Clipper City has sent brewers John Eugeni and Chris Mallon to this year's GABF in Denver. Please stop by our booth and say hello to these hard-working, unsung (until now!) members of our team.

Here's an amusing anecdote from the 2006 Great American Beer Festival.

The first session had just commenced. An attendee hurried up to me and said: "You look like you know something about beer." Well, yes, I was wearing a Clipper City ID badge around my neck.

He continued, "Here's my problem. I don't like beer. What should I try?"

I couldn't help but laugh. "Sorry bud. You must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque. This is the Great American Beer Festival."