Close your eyes and imagine the largest buffet of beer choices that you can imagine. Can you possibly picture more beer than you could hope to enjoy? That is what I did as I stood in line along with thousands watching Homer and Marge cut the ceremonial ribbon along with Charlie Papazian at the 2009 edition of the Great American Beer Festival in Denver this past weekend.

This year’s event promised more space and more beer and for this first timer, they delivered. The cavernous hall had booth after booth set-up like a grocery store and despite the large and loud crowd, you could move around pretty easily and most importantly get the beer easily. The logistics involved to bring this together makes my head spin.

Each cluster of booths represented a geographic section of our brewing country. So where did I travel?

I started in the Northwest section…
Eclipse Black IPA from Bend Brewing – Dark brown in color. Hops are subdued. Could almost be mistaken for a black lager.

Citra Blonde from Widmer Brewing – Very yellow beer. More so than the industrial lager. Mixture of corn and wheat tastes. Almost like corn pops cereal.

Wry Pale Ale from Laurelwood Brewing – Another light yellow colored beer. A muted hop profile. Spice flavors come in at the end.

Summer Ale from 10 Barrel Brewing – Dark yellow with good carbonation. Middle of the road to my taste.

Great Pumpkin from Elysian Brewing – A lot of pie spices in this one. A little too much for me.

Prevale from Laurelwood Brewing – Mild and gentle IPA. Nice balance of hops and malts. Plus proceeds from sales go to charity.

…moving on to the Midwest….
Oberon from Bell’s Brewing – Similar to the citra blonde. Corn flavor and light. A very refreshing beer.

Matilda from Goose Island Brewing – Yeasty and light in color. Almost what you would call a saison light.

…detour to the Southeast…
Improvisacion Oatmeal Rye India Brown Ale from Cigar City – Way over the top. A bit of a muddle that ends with an alcoholic bite.

…up to the Northeast…
Cuvee de Cardoz from Brooklyn Brewing – I was prepared to not like this. Indian spices mixed with beer? Oh, but it works wonders. A surprise favorite.

Palo Santo Marron from Dogfish Head – I wanted to try the South American corn beer Chichas but it was long gone. My replacement is a solid brown/dark beer with some interesting malt flavors.

…back home to California…
Rubidus from Uncommon Brewers – Made with mushrooms. Sickly sweet and leaves an odd vegetal taste on the tongue.

Duck, Duck Gooze from The Lost Abbey – A combination of sour and buttery notes. I will need to have more to fully appreciate it.

In between the samples, I snuck into one of the You Be the Judge sessions. Jamie Floyd from Ninkasi Brewing handed out two samples of unknown beers with the only hint being pale ale and lager. As the group sipped and took notes, he talked about how to judge a style of beer and he gave some background on his beer judging past and future. I would have loved to hear other judge’s stories and techniques because it really pulled the veil back a bit on the mysterious world crowning beers with medals and awards.

I also sat in on a fascinating Q&A with Tomme Arthur (Port Brewing/Lost Abbey) and Tonya Cornett from Bend Brewing about the process of collaborating on a beer. We also got to try two versions of Hot Rocks lager. One made in Bend, Oregon and one here in California. I am sure that brewers from around the country made contacts that will end up in new beers next year.

It was 9:30 in the evening at that point and I had been drinking since 10 in the morning. I hadn’t tried all the beers that I had wanted to and I knew at that point that unless I had another four hours and a fresh palate I was not go to get even close, so I headed out into the night to watch the fireworks from the Rockies game.

So, your beer homework is to get your tickets for the L.A. Beer Week Descanso Garden event because if you want to go to GABF next year, you had better prepare yourself by testing your taste buds and soaking up all the information I have since I will be there volunteering.

Find more of Sean Inman’s writing on his blog, Beer Search Party.