Visiting the Great Pumpkin Beer Fest (day 1)

Elysian Brewing’s Great Pumpkin Beer Festival has been on my “bucket list” of beer events to attend for a while now (since I love pumpkin beers, as long-time followers know), and this year was finally it. I’ll have more to write about the Festival after this weekend, for now some images and notes from yesterday’s Day One.

Elysian Great Pumpkin Beer Festival

We’re here with a media pass (of course), which allowed us and the other media to enter at 3pm yesterday, an hour earlier than the 4pm general opening, and sample beers and get pictures and notes ahead of the crowd.

GPBF media pass

So far, I have to say I’m super impressed, and this might be my favorite beer festival ever: nothing but pumpkin beers, 65 or more of them, with various specialties rotating on tap at different times of the day. There is a mind-boggling variety and so far some really, really good beers.

Pumpkin Gose

Here’s a list of what I sampled yesterday:

  • Brooklyn Brewery Post Road Pumpkin Ale
  • Cambridge Brett Sematary Sour Pumpkin Ale (mislabeled, I thought I had gotten their Great Pumpkin but still good)
  • North Peak Hooligan Hoppy Pumpkin Ale
  • Saint Arnold Pumpkinator (Imperial Stout)
  • Epic Ales Pumpkin Pie Gose
  • Northwest Brewing Jack
  • Elysian Purple Pumpkineater (Lavender Pumpkin Saison)
  • Fremont Pump’kin B-Bomb (bourbon barrel aged Imperial Pumpkin Porter)
  • Slippery Pig Stinging Nettle Amber (pumpkin and nettles—really)
  • Elysian The Great Gherkin (cucumber pumpkin ale)
  • Elysian The Gourdfather (Barleywine)
  • Beau’s/Elysian Oiseau de Nuit Pumpkin Gruit
  • Whatever pumpkin beer was in the first giant pumpkin that was tapped (didn’t find out what it was, it was good though)
  • Howe Sound Pumpkineater
  • Puyallup River Gourdy Wow!
  • Iron Hill Ichabod Imperial Belgian Pumpkin Ale

So, 16 beers in all. A good start!

Giant pumpkin cask

GPBF

Pumpkin carver

One comment

  1. I’ve also got that on my list of fests to visit. Glad you made it and thanks for the timely post! Look forward to hearing about your favorites.

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