Boulder Strong Ale Festival

The Boulder Strong Ale Festival was a lot of fun… perhaps too much fun… but that’s better than not enough fun.
It’s exactly as it states: a beer festival of only big beers (7.5−8% and above). Although I would have liked to have seen some more out-​of-​state breweries and beers from outside Colorado, they had a good mix of breweries there. The beers were incredible. Lost Abbey may have been my favorite brewery there, but as always, Avery represented quite well. In total there were over 120 beers to sample. Plus there were some great food offerings to help soak up those monster beers.
Details on the festival are pretty scarce before you get there, but I can say it was rather well done once the festival started. You get a sheet with all the beers, which are numbered. You find the numbered station you want, and ask for the beer. You get about a 16 tickets or something like that, which believe me, is more than enough. You get nice pours that allow you to actually taste the beer, which is really nice.
All in all, a very fun festival. Gets a little crowed later in the day, and some beers do run out. I got there around 11:15/11:30 and was one of the first ones in. I’m looking forward to going again. If you seek out crazy, big, and flavor-​packed beers, this festival is for you.

Wow — according to the next review the previous years would have been a madhouse comparatively.
I had huge difficulties getting around people and moving from area to area and booth to booth.

I have attended this event for many years but found this year to be one of the better years in terms of the venue. In the past it was held at Harpo’s Sports Grill just down the street from Avery Brewing Co. I always felt that it was way to crowded but not this year. This year it was held at the brewery, the fest was divided between two of their large storage warehouse and then connected at the rear of the building by tents, these tents also housed several food vendors.
I was however a little disappointed in the showing of beers. Every year I look forward to the offerings from Cambridge Brewing and Firestone Walker, neither of them were there this year. As I know this is no fault of Avery’s it still kind of bummed me out. I was very impressed with a lot of the beers but I have to say Avery brought it strong. Their beers were honestly the best beers there. Others had some amazing beers but very few were within the caliber of Avery’s.
As I have in the past I will continue to attend this event. There was a little problem with crowding but you are always going to have that problem at a festival. I think limiting the number of attendees to 400 per session was the greatest line of defense they could have taken.