For the seventh year running the Great Australian Beer Festival (GABF) returns to Geelong, and as craft beer lovers delight, Renn Blackman of Blackman\u2019s Brewery said non-beer drinkers can rejoice too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beer festival is awesome for Geelong and the Surf Coast in showcasing Aussie beers that are doing really good things. There\u2019s quite a few breweries in the region doing well and people may not know about them,\u201d Mr Blackman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe GABF has helped push them to the forefront of people\u2019s minds. Blackman\u2019s has been going since we opened over four and a half years ago and I attended every year since prior to that, with work in some form.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Blackman said people\u2019s views on craft beer has evolved over the past 10 years and while some love traditional beers like Carlton Draught, people are more adventurous now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s slowly changing, 10 years ago craft beer was seen as a \u201cposh\u201d person\u2019s drink but now people are happy to try it and finding they like it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many styles of beer now, even people that say they\u2019re not beer drinkers can go to the beer festival and find something they like. A Belgian witbier is lighter, not bitter and a little bit lemony. Someone who normally drinks cider often really likes that style.\u201d<\/p>\n
GABF co-organiser Mike Ward said this year\u2019s event would include all the favourites; street food, live music, DJs and over 200 different beers from more than 40 national breweries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the only festival in the world that has all Geelong and regional brewers attending the one single event \u2013 spend a part of your day getting around to these local beauties and the other tasting beers\u00a0from across the nation,\u201d Mr Ward said. This year\u2019s festival takes place February 16 from 1-8pm with organisers adding larger tasting cups and allowing brewers to sell their beers by the can; for brewers who have them.<\/p>\n
Mr Ward and fellow organiser Kieran Blood said craft beer shouldn\u2019t be just for haughty hipsters or boring box-tickers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mission is to bring good, flavorsome, creative beers to the masses.<\/p>\n
By putting on an event that brings together great beer, music and street food, we hope it appeals to a wide variety of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
For tickets and more information, visit gabfgeelong.com.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the seventh year running the Great Australian Beer Festival (GABF) returns to Geelong, and as craft beer lovers delight, Renn Blackman of Blackman\u2019s Brewery said non-beer drinkers can rejoice too. \u201cThe beer festival is awesome for Geelong and the Surf Coast in showcasing Aussie beers that are doing really good things. There\u2019s quite a […]<\/p>\n