It would be remiss of me not to note that there’s this little beer festival going on Denver this week, from Thursday the 11th through Saturday the 13th. Some 49,000 people will be descending on the Colorado Convention Center over those three days, and the city of Denver becomes awash with beeranistas.

The Great American Beer Festival is the American brewing industry’s top public tasting opportunity and competition. Tasting sessions will offer attendees the opportunity to tour America’s brewing landscape, one ounce at a time, with access to more than 2,200 different beers from some 500 of the nation’s finest breweries. The GABF gathers practically every type of beer from all of the regions of the country, and are arranged geographically on the festival floor. The festival allows visitors to taste the largest number and the widest variety of hand-crafted products in the American beer industry.

There’s a lot more than just drinking beer: there’s beer and food demos in the Beer & Food Pavilion, a ton of book signings by a slew of fantastic authors, a Silent Disco (that’s a new one to me), education about sustainability, beer judging education, and much more.

And of course since this is largely an Oregon-centric beer blog, here’s the list of Oregon breweries that will be in attendance:

• 10 Barrel Brewing Co.
• Alameda Brewing Co.
• Barley Brown’s Brew Pub
• Beer Valley Brewing
• Bend Brewing Co
• Blitz-Weinhard Brewing
• Breakside Brewery
• BridgePort Brewing Company
• Cascade Lakes Brewing Company
• Deschutes Brewery
• Falling Sky Brewing
• Fort George Brewery
• Full Sail Brewing at Riverplace
• Full Sail Brewing Company
• Gigantic Brewing Company
• GoodLife Brewing Company
• Harvester Brewing
• Hop Valley Brewing Co.
• Hopworks Urban Brewery
• Laurelwood Brewing Company
• MacTarnahan’s
• Mt. Emily Ale House
• Ninkasi Brewing Company
• Oakshire Brewing
• Omission Brewing Company
• Pelican Pub & Brewery
• Ram Restaurant & Brewery – Clackamas
• Rock Bottom Portland
• Rogue Brewery
• Silver Moon Brewing
• Steelhead Brewing Company
• The Commons Brewery
• Three Creeks Brewing Company
• Widmer Brothers Brewing Co.
• Widmer Brothers Rose Garden Brewery

No, I’m not going this year. One of these years I will!