Next Steps After Registering
- Confirmation of Entries
- Shipping Your Judging Beers
- Festival Beer Shipment and Transportation (Microstar)
Did you know?
Did you know that lots of brewers in geographical areas consolidate shipments when sending in their judge beers? More and more brewers are getting together with local breweries and shipping pallets of their judging beers together. This saves you time and money! So for 2009, consider calling other breweries in the area, or contacting your local guild to discuss the option of palletizing your judge beers, and shipping them together via freight.
Confirmation of Entries
After your registration form has been received, a confirmation will be sent to you on July 16, 2009. The first confirmation will come as an email. Please review the confirmation letter very closely and confirm that all of the information is correct. Spelling and capitalization counts! Once you sign off, all of the your information for the competition and festival program will be taken from this. This confirmation will include the following:
- Your brewery information.
- A listing of all of your beers and the categories they are entered in.
- Your specific drop-off point, with a date for delivery of your festival beer, and the name and phone number or email for your contact. Your beer will be kept cold at the drop-off point until a refrigerated truck picks it up and brings it to Denver. Once in Denver the beer will be placed in cold storage at the Anheuser-Busch wholesale operation, which acts as the Festival’s licensed host distributor. If you elect to ship your own beer, you must prepay the freight. Anheuser-Busch will refuse any C.O.D. shipments.
- If any information is incorrect, make the changes directly onto the confirmation letter.
- You may also change beers at this time, but only if a category has not closed since the entry deadline. Please contact Robin Panzer at 303-447-0816 x120 to confirm that there is space in your desired category before making these changes.
- You must sign off that the information on the confirmation is correct. You can either sign the confirmation and fax back to 303-447-2825 or send an email to robin@brewersassociation.org stating that all of your information is correct.
- The signed confirmation must be returned by July 27th.
- You will also be sent the no charge invoice. This is to be sent along with your festival beers.
You will also mailed some other competition items. This will mail at the beginning of August and include the following:
- Keg labels that must be attached to each keg being sent to the Festival. Be sure to write both your brewery name and the beer name. This is important as just writing "stout" on there does not help us to know where the beer needs to go.
- Pre-printed category labels for your entries for judging.
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Brewers
If you are not sending a beer entered in the competition or you are changing beers for the floor, send an email to robin@brewersassociation.org.
Shipping Your Judging Beers
Your brewery must provide at least six (6) 12-ounce containers; four (4) 22-ounce containers; or the equivalent of at least 72 ounces for each judged entry–regardless of size, send a minimum of 4 bottles of each brand being judged.
Containers sent for the judging panel cannot be returned.
All beers to be judged must be shipped separately from your festival beers to:
Anheuser-Busch
Attn: GABF Judging
1455 E. 62nd Ave.
Denver, CO 80216
Attn: Warehouse Dock
These beers must be received between August 24 through 27, 2009. Late entries will not be accepted. Last minute brand changes or late entries are a significant cause of sample handling problems, database inaccuracies, and these requests are also unfair to your fellow competitors. GABF will not be responsible for any aspect of judging or beer handling for samples that arrive after August 27, 2009.
Breweries that do not bottle or can, should clearly label their beers to be judged, using the pre-printed labels provided, with the name of the beer, the category number and name, and the subcategory name and letter. This information should match the information provided on your registration form. Be sure to label your bottles correctly. GABF will not be responsible for bottles that are mislabeled.
Pre-printed labels will be mailed around July 27, 2009. If the pre-printed labels are not correct, please write a correct label by hand or make corrections to the pre-printed label. The Festival will not resend labels.
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The Microstar keg system has changed for 2009!
Each year we are looking for ways to increase the amount of kegs available to breweries for the Microstar program. This year we will be offering you one ½ barrel keg in addition to the 1/6 barrel kegs. The new breakdown is as follows:
- one ½ barrel keg for 1 of your brands entered
- two 1/6 barrel kegs for each additional brand (up to your maximum 5 brands)
Each brewery will now have an additional 5 gallons at your disposal. You know which of your brands will most likely run out fi rst with attendees. Please use the ½ barrel keg for that brand.
We have a fi nite number of Microstar kegs available to participating GABF breweries. We will do our best to accommodate all Microstar keg requests. Please note that they will all be on a first-come, first-served basis. If we have run out of our allotment of kegs, you will be asked to send your own kegs and we will return them to you immediately following the festival.
Festival Beer Shipment and Transportation (Microstar)
Please read this section very carefully and direct questions to Bradley Latham at (303) 447-0816 ext.145 or Nancy Johnson, ext. 131.
Beer may only be received in the following three ways:
- Microstar Keg Management, the official keg management company and keg supplier of the GABF, will conveniently send participating breweries' kegs to fill for their festival entries. If you are an existing Microstar client, you must also use your inventory for festival.
- A minimum of 15 cases of each brand in bottles or cans (8 cases of 22 oz. or 750 ml) delivered to your drop-off point for shipment to Denver.
- Kegs, bottles, or cans may be sent from the brewery using a Denver-based distributor. If you choose to use your own Denver-based distributor, all kegs must be picked up from the Convention Center on Sunday, September 27, 2009 before noon. The GABF is not responsible for kegs not picked up by this time.
When sending your beers for the festival floor, be sure to include the no charge invoice sent to you with your confirmation.
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