The Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular, 2014

The Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular (GABS) was once again specTAPularly hosted at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton, Melbourne. It was an absolutely stunning event featuring a plethora of craft beers from Australia and around the world. Considering that this was the largest craft beer event in the southern hemisphere, expectations were high. What impressed me was regardless if you were a casual beer drinker or a craft beer aficionado, the opportunity to sample well over 150+ brews allowed everyone to walk away handsomely rewarded.

Shane Warne at GABS

Proceedings kicked off at midday on Friday, 23rd May with the craft beer community having the pleasure of witnessing former Australian cricketer Shane Warne 'ringing the bell' to officially open the event. The final day on Sunday, 25th May marked the end of an unbelievable beer-fest, which including 'silly hat day'.

From the very first sip to the very last drop, GABS had paved the way for all beer-lovers to unite as one and enjoy the wonderful textures, flavours and aromas that swept the Royal Exhibition Building. For three glorious days the beer-loving and brewing community shared one voice, one dream: to exhibit and share Australia's passion for craft beer. 

Royal Exhibition Building

Certainly that dream was heard by the hundreds of people lining up on the opening day, queuing to get in and sample some goodies. My mate (Laurie - aka Humper), Mark (aka - Elk, my good mate from Melbourne) and I waited patiently in line, along with the other 'Season Pass' holders. A one-off ticket purchase of $115 granted you access to all three days, which was significantly cheaper than going to any one session on any particular day. 

As we waited patiently, the anxiety slowly crept in. The line become shorter and shorter, until it was time for our tickets to be scanned and get slapped with a plastic wristband that had a bar code, which required you to wear 24x7. That sucked, but having breezed through that section we were greeted by some awesome volunteers that promptly handed us a GABS magazine and a GABS glass. 

GABS glass

So, what to do now? Magazine in hand, glass in hand. Get me to the beer! But which one? Forget about Billy Shakespeare's "To be, or not to be", the real question is: which beer do I start with? Some 150+ options were at our disposal, some specially brewed for the GABS. I guess the only choice was to start from the very beginning, and that meant from the end of the hall where stall #1 was. 

Stall #1, GABS

OK, so we are at stall #1. That was the "easy" bit. The more difficult task was to choose what beer you wanted, and whether you had a 'sample flight' or used your GABS glass. Seeing as we were there to sample all the beers, a sample flight of 5 beers at 100ml each was the right choice to make.

Nice choice, I reckon. Humper, Elk and I relished the opportunity to wander aimlessly through the beer lists and traverse the "dangerous" beer-styles that were on offer. You could be forgiven for being somewhat overwhelmed with the choices on offer, but we stuck to our guns and made sure we'd stick to whatever regime we had. 

One of many sample flights at GABS

My personal goal with regards to the 'regime' I had was to sample as many flights as I could, without breaking the bank. It was clever of the organisers to issue tokens in exchange for cash, which were available via a booth at marked locations. Once you received your tokens you could then 'purchase' beer (and food) within the event itself using those tokens. 

You see, each flight cost $10, which equated to 5 tokens. Seeing as there were about 111 beers combined at the stalls, this amounted to major open-wallet surgery. If you took the option of trying all 111 beers available at the stalls, you'd be up for just over $250. Now, I'm no financial stock market whiz-kid but $250 is enough to cover the debt of some third world countries! Needless to say that only the bravest of brave people, along with their deep wallets, dared to invest in this type of strategy.

GABS tickets

Like William Wallace in Braveheart, I gallantly fought through, (pregnant pause) beer by beer. Honestly, tt was tough. It was a slog, but boy was it heaps of bloody fun! There were some genuinely great beers, but some of them weren't up to my so-called "standards". I mean, detecting what is "good" versus what is "great" is very subjective. You just have to read this article from my 2012/2013 USA trip to understand some of the complexities.

Complexities aside, the atmosphere at the GABS was just phenomenal. Hordes of people were wafting through the hall trying to get to a stall and order another flight, or beer. I loved the idea of live music, with a trio of musicians dressed in what looked like something of a 1930's theme jingling away with old and new songs, sometimes even being too funny for their own good. 

My top 7 beers

It truly was a great occasion, and to top it off I was going through quite a lot of beers and making sure that I kept notes of what I liked and what I didn't like. Thankfully, the great people of the GABS managed to create an application, which, of course, allowed you to download onto your smart phone device (Android or iPhone) and rank them as you see fit. It also enabled you to vote for your favourite beer at the GABS.

It was a difficult choice to pinpoint which beer was my favourite. There were some rarefied beautifies, I tell ya. I couldn't help but notice, though, that there was a theme: sour beers and barrel-aged beers. This was something I was surprised to find out (via tasting the sample flights). Surprisingly, I didn't find myself liking too many of these 'themed' beers, but regardless of what I thought it still allowed me to experience something unique.

Winner at GABS

For me, though, there was no doubt about which beer was best at the GABS. It stood out like dog's balls. I loved quite a few, but this was a clear and decisive winner. A Belgian Chocolate Ale from La Sirene Brewing, Victoria. They specialise in Belgian and French style ales. Well, what can I say? They certainly know their (beer) stuff! By the second mouthful of this delicious beer, I was hooked. I knew it was going to win, and I am glad I wasn't alone in thinking that.

You know who else was a winner? Humper, Elk and I. We did pretty damn well considering the amount of choices we had. Like I mentioned earlier, I wanted to do my best in trying to taste all the beers. I came pretty close to completing all the beers available in the stalls (minus the "late scratchings" with certain beers, as they simply rant out - such was their popularity). Unfortunately, I missed out on completing them all but I did finish with a total of 85 samples. That equates to 17 paddles. Not bad, huh? 

Craft beer nut? 'Tis the Saison.....

So, how do I sum up my experience at the 2014 GABS? One word: awesome. The quality of craft beer was fantastic, the venue was brilliant, the crowd were polite, knowledgeable and playful, the volunteers were terrific and we even had Sharne Warne to open proceedings. 

Has craft beer made an impact? Absolutely! All you had to do was walk out to the car park at the GABS and look at the cars that were parked there. Can you tell this person is a craft beer nut? I can assure you that my mates and I were without a doubt handsomely rewarded from the great event that was the GABS. 

Bring on 2015!

Until next time.....

dannbrew@gmail.com