Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine Festival

I’m just now coming out of the hangover from this event back in January…
Seriously though, I did have a pretty horrific hangover. It was like a 9.8 on the HO scale.
Moving right along: I used to be all about beer festivals back when I was what may be pejoratively termed a «beer bro».
Now: I’m pretty jaded. I don’t often go to them. Why would I wait in a stupid line for 5 minutes to get sample of a beer that every decent pub in town has on tap? (I’m looking at YOU: Oregon Brewer’s Festival!) What I do go to are *unique* beer festivals. Show me some stuff I haven’t had before, pour me some stuff I can’t normally get in the state!
GABBF has those. There were many vendors here that I was shocked to see. Freemont Brewing?! They don’t even distribute to Oregon, let alone Alaska. But, here they were, pour suds to establish good will in the 49^th state. Awesome.
I’ll definitely be back next year.
I hope I’m semi-​functional the day afterwards this time…

This year was the 20^th annual event and featured products from more than 50 different Alaska breweries. Tickets went on sale a few months ago. A different ticket was needed for each of the different sessions on Friday and Saturday. A friend accidentally bought one for Saturday and was not able to use it when we tried to enter for the Friday evening session. Serious bummer.
Doors opened promptly at 6:00 PM. Attendees were given a program listing some background on each of the breweries that were attending and the specifications of each of the beers and barleywines that they had on offer. A shotglass (pictured) with a three ounce line that was supposed to be the top for each sample and a booklet of thirty tickets. Most of the samples were one «ticket» but a few of them were two or even three.
Inside, it got crowded pretty quickly. Within an hour, there was enough room to walk around through the crowds. But no one ran out of beer, which was great.
I managed to drink 24 of my 30 tickets before I had to sit down and rest for a bit. In those 90 minutes, I had a few good ones and a few that I would never actually pay for. Including King Street Brewing Company (Pilsner), California Cider Company (Hard Apple Cider), Pyramid Breweries (Hefeweizen), Shocktop (Chocolate Wheat), Last Frontier Brewing Company (24 Karat Gold Lager), Silver Gulch Brewing Company (Coldfoot Pilsner), 21^st Amendment Brewery (Hell of High Watermelon). My favorite overall was Alaskan Brewery’s White Ale — I went back for seconds. This was also my choice later, when we were out and about drinking and eating in Alaska.
There wasn’t much for food, though a vendor downstairs was selling something. I’d recommend that you bring your own, such as a string of pretzels as a necklace. A live band was playing music, loudly. Maybe too loudly. We shouldn’t have to shout to be heard by the guy/​gal standing next to us, knowwhatImean?
The venue was pretty good, but the bathrooms were downstairs. Beer festival, folks! Lots of people need to be making room for more beer and they probably shouldn’t be negotiating stairs or an escalator. Know what I mean? There was also a coat check downstairs, so that you could be comfortable inside without having to drag around your winter gear. It is January, after all!
All told, a super event and I had a grand time. Looking forward to doing it again!