Our last full day in Denver

It's Saturday night, and we are looking forward to seeing our families back home. The first thing I did today was call my good friend Ashly Goodwin who was also visiting Denver for the GABF. Unlike James and me, he had driven to the event and had offered to take some beer home to Arkansas for me. I got one of the bellmen to help me load up all my beer onto a cart, and we took it to the main entrance of the hotel and waited for Ash. I got several strange looks as I stood there with a baggage cart loaded with beer. After loading up Ash's truck with my Colorado beer stash, we headed off to the Samuel Adams Beers and Brunch event. They announced the winners of their Longshot homebrew competition and fed us some really good food. We also got to sample some of their $100 a bottle Utopias beer. James got a great interview with Jim Koch, the founder of Boston Beer company, which makes Samuel Adams. James, Brian and I each got a second taste of Utopias and then made our way to the GABF Connoisseur Tasting and Awards ceremony. Once again we got to taste several unique beers from around the country and got to meet some really nice people. At one point we had someone come up and ask us what podcasting and Basic Brewing Radio and Video were all about. To our amazement, one of the other people we where taking to, Mike from Aurora, whipped out his iPod and showed them part of a Basic Brewing Video podcast. Now that was much easier than trying to explain the whole podcasting thing to them! About this time the connoisseur tasting was winding down, and Brian decided to bid us farewell. I really enjoyed getting to meet Brian on this trip. Both he and his wife, Anna, are warm and generous people who I'm proud to now call friends. They will be welcome in my home if they are ever in Fayetteville. I had been craving some fish tacos from Illegal Pete's, a cool little restaurant we found last time we where in Denver. So James and I walked the 5 or 6 blocks down to Illegal Pete's and got some dinner. This year's trip to the GABF was even better than last year's. We got to meet some really cool people, drink some wonderful beers, and have some delicious food. If you have ever considered attending the GABF I encourage you to start planning now for next year.
Cheers-