A techie subculture in the heart of the Great American Beer Festival

by Anthony Sodd
September 25, 2015

The nation's largest craft beer festival is officially underway in downtown Denver. About 60,000 beer-swilling aficionados are expected to attend this year's Great American Beer Festival, which features over 3,800 craft beers from brewers around the country. If you don’t already have tickets, good luck — they sold out in about an hour.

We did, however, manage to snag a couple tickets, and decided to head down to the festival to see what the hubbub was all about. As you might expect, the event takes place in a huge room that is filled with thousands of beers, all begging to be tasted. There is an unusually high density of beards, even by Colorado standards, and many of those were covered in suds and pretzel remnants. It was a hell of a scene. 

With this as a backdrop, we also found a thriving techie sub-culture, which makes a lot of sense. There’s no doubt that techies love their craft beer. Many Colorado tech offices offer workers free beer, and some even have homebrew clubs. There are tons of beer-themed tech events, and, of course, Built in Brews.

At any rate, if you did manage to get some tickets, here are some tech inspired things you should check out in between beers:

The App Controlled Beer Keg Robot

Watch out Sphero, the only thing people like more than app controlled robots are app controlled kegs of beer. I mean, we like the BB-8 and all (not that I could find one in the store), but this guy is basically the same thing — just with beer. The Rock Diamond Bear Brewing Company out of Arkansas brought along this cutting edge beer delivery technology. Apparently Kegbot (my name, not theirs) was built by the Little Rock Innovation Hub. Just look at the smile it put on that bearded man's face.

 

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Cannabis Infused Beer

I don’t even want to know the sorts of technology it took to make this possible. Alas, proving once again that stoners make fantastic tinkerers, the people at Dad and Dudes Breweria in Aurora figured out how to make marijuana infused beer. The beer doesn’t actually smell or taste much like marijuana, but it is infused with something called cannabidiol, a marijuana extract. In case you were wondering, the only buzz you’ll get from this beer is from the alcohol. If you didn’t get tickets to the GABF, you can still try a glass at the brewery or, appropriately, at Cheba Hut

 

A Silent Rave

How cool is it to dance to silence? Well, it’s not really silent for the dancers, but thankfully it is for everybody else. The Oskar Blues Brewery put together a silent rave right in the middle of the festival. Grab some headphones, grab a dance partner and make an ass out of yourself in the middle of 50,000 half-drunk beer nerds. If you play your cards right, you’ll even get a chance to dance with the Oskar Blue mascot — a 6-foot dancing beer can.

 

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An All New App

The Great American Beer Festival has a really well done, newly updated and robust app. You can now guide your drunken palate around the room with your smartphone. The app allows you to record tasting notes, so maybe you'll actually remember which of the beers you liked in the morning. Probably the best part of the app is its map feature, which shows where all 3,800 beers are located.

 

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Use Uber to Request a Bratwurst from a Guy in Lederhosen

Apparently this promotion doesn’t start until Saturday, but it sounds pretty sweet. Basically, if you request an ‘UberWurst’ at the Convention Center, a guy in lederhosen will show up with a bratwurst. Shortly thereafter somebody will show up to whisk you, and your beer and brat filled belly to your next locale. Isn’t life great?

 

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A Funsies Onesies Paradise

We were super-excited to see that the people from The Funsies Onesies Clothing Company had shown up en masse, and in style. The Great American Beer Fest is the perfect, and possibly only, location where it’s socially acceptable to be seen in public dressed like Teletubby. Alas, no, the half-intoxicated onesies wearing group we stumbled upon were wearing adult onesies purchased from a costume store, and called themselves the Party Animals.

 

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Actually, the Great American Beer Festival is a veritable cornucopia of adults in onesies. Shortly after parting ways with the Party Animals, we spotted these guys. Apparently, the Funsies Onesies Clothing Company has some competition from Cleveland-based Rage On. I suppose if nothing else, this should show investors that there is pent up demand in the adult onesies market.

Have fun, Colorado. Enjoy your beer and take advantage of that Uber promotion — it's a way better deal than a DUI. 

 

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