The Great American Beer Festival plans to reduce the number of attendee sessions in 2024 and permit breweries to serve additional beverages, including ready-to-drink cocktails.
Boulder-based organizer the Brewers Association recently noted changes to the craft beer industry’s biggest event, coming to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver Oct. 10-12, in registration guidelines for prospective brewery participants.
Instead of the usual four, individually-ticketed festival sessions, GABF will host three sessions: One on Thursday night (5:30 to 9:30 p.m.), one on Friday night (5:30 to 9:30 p.m.), and one Saturday afternoon (noon to 4:30 p.m.). That schedule eliminates a session previously held on Saturday nights.
The festival, now in its 42nd year, used to have a strict policy limiting breweries to serving libations that could be entered into its prestigious competition (read: beer). However, that changed in recent years in response to changes in consumer palates.
Last year, GABF permitted “select breweries” to serve hard seltzer for the first time, as well as cider, kombucha and mead. In 2024, the BA will permit breweries to add RTDs to the menu, alongside hard soda, tea and other malt-base beverages. As RTDs have increased in popularity in recent years, many beer makers have jumped into producing them to diversify their portfolios and entice new drinkers to visit their taprooms or pick up a six-pack.
How breweries are set up at GABF will also change this year. In the registration guidelines, the BA asked participants to share their preferences for their booth’s location based on “themed experience areas,” such as sports bar/gaming, spooky-scary and backyard/live music. In previous years, breweries have been arranged by region or alphabetically.
Reached by email, BA spokesperson Ann Obenchain said some amendments, like getting rid of one session, were made in response to feedback from brewers and attendees. For brewers, the new schedule allows them to reduce travel costs and participate in events out on the town Saturday night. For attendees, it means fewer kicked kegs.
Other changes allude to the evolving beverage landscape and the headwinds facing the beer market, specifically. In recent years, beer sales have lost market share to other alcohol options like spirits and alcohol as a whole has fallen out of favor with Gen Z, the next cohort of would-be drinkers. Earlier this year, the BA reported craft beer production was down 1% in 2023, making it the worst year on record since the association started tracking the data in the late 1970s.
“Consumers are drinking multiple things and expecting various options at events they attend, and brewers are expanding their offerings to meet those expectations,” Obenchain said. “The changes we made in 2023 were well-received, so this year, we have added ready-to-drink (RTD) canned cocktails for 2024.”
Obenchain also noted that GABF is evolving alongside the beer festival scene, which has shifted dramatically.
“Compared to previous years in the mid-2010s, when events like GABF sold-out within a matter of hours (or occasionally minutes), the world of consumer events has changed, especially in our post-pandemic world,” Obenchain said. “The anticipated attendance of 40,000 (same as 2023) will be redistributed across three sessions. Attendance numbers have remained steady since the festival restarted after the pandemic.”
She expects more than 500 breweries to pour samples this year. Tickets go on sale to members of the American Homebrewers Association on July 16 before they go on sale to the general public on July 17 at greatamericanbeerfestical.com.
Check out the scene from the 2023 event:
Subscribe to our new food newsletter, Stuffed, to get Denver food and drink news sent straight to your inbox.
