GABF cheers ten years

Cooking demonstrations were run by Masterchef contestant Tim Bone and Little Creatures' Stephen Shing.

MORE than 6,000 people turned out over a two-day period to taste some of Australia’s best brews at the Great Australian Beer Festival (GABF) in Geelong’s Johnstone Park.

Held on Friday, January 20, and Saturday, January 21, the event expanded from its usual one-day event to a two-day extravaganza, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the popular beer festival with plenty of entertainment, food, and the region’s best beers, wines and ciders.

GABF director Kieran Blood said the event went down as one of the best festival’s yet, with food masterclasses, live music, children’s activities and a range of brews on offer for everyone to enjoy.

A host of comedians and other entertainers rocked the GABF stage.

“It was very successful, all the new elements including the comedy, the cooking masterclasses and the Australian Open screen worked really well with a beer in hand,” Mr Blood said.

“We had a fantastic crowd for both days, a real mix of ages and generations of people.

“The cooking demonstrations from Masterchef contestant Tim Bone and Little Creatures Stephen Shing were fantastic and people were stoked to sit down and enjoy it in the theatre setting.

The festival was regarded as the best one yet.

“We probably had a much wider amount of local vendors as well this year including Austin Wines, Flowstate in Torquay and FarmDog as well as a relatively new brewer.

“You can’t really go anywhere else in Australia and have 13 or 14 local Geelong breweries all brewing in the one place.”

Mr Blood said live music was another highlight, with four of Geelong’s Best Buskers, including competition winner Gabby Steel, and Australian artists Ash Grunwald, Telenova, Tyne-Jones Organ and Joelyn Petch rocking out the stage.

The beer was cold and on tap for Friday and Saturday’s event.

“It was definitely more successful being a two-day event, we were really happy with it,” Mr Blood said.

“We really tried to get our traders involved too by giving them free tickets so they could come down and have some different beers from around the region.

“It was really well received by them.”

The GABF said they look forward to hosting the event once again in 2024 and are incredibly thankful for the community support and vendors who traded and enjoyed the event.