The consumer-facing, in-person Great American Beer Festival tasting event will not take place for a second consecutive year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brewers Association (BA) announced today.
However, the competition that accompanies the festival will go on as planned this year, while the in-person event is slated to return in 2022 for GABF’s 40th anniversary.
“Despite vaccination efforts and the gradual reopening of the country, the health and safety concerns for large indoor gatherings, like GABF’s 60,000-attendee event, remain,” the not-for-profit trade group said. “While we are disappointed to cancel the festival portion of GABF for the second year in a row, and we will miss celebrating with beer lovers and our craft brewing community, we are excited to continue with the GABF competition and national passport program this year.”
The winners of the 2021 GABF competition will be announced on September 10, 2021, during the BA’s annual Craft Brewers Conference & BrewExpo America (CBC) event at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. The awards ceremony will be live-streamed from the Bellco Theatre on The Brewing Network.
Registration for the 2021 GABF competition runs from June 8-22. Judging will take place August 16 through September 4, 2021.
The in-person festival is now scheduled to take October 6-8, 2022, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.
In place of the in-person GABF in 2021, the BA is bringing back its national passport program from September 17 through October 17, 2021. Last year, more than 1,100 breweries from across the country participated in the program’s first year. Passports cost $20 and will go on sale in July. Brewery registration for the event begins June 29.
“We are disappointed to cancel the festival portion of GABF for the second year in a row,” Bob Pease, president and CEO for the Brewers Association, said in a press release. “While we will miss celebrating with beer lovers and our craft brewing community, we are excited to continue with the GABF competition and national passport program this year. We look forward to convening in person for the festival’s 40th anniversary in 2022.”
CBC in Denver from September 9-12, 2021, will mark the first major BA event since the start of the pandemic. Registration opens May 4 for the event. The BA expects between 6,000 and 7,000 attendees at the event, based on state guidelines, a spokesperson told Brewbound.
Denver Beer Week will also move its dates to coincide with the 2021 CBC, running from September 10-18, with around 200 events, including tap takeovers, beer tastings and meet-the-brewer events.
The 2021 iteration of CBC was initially scheduled for March 29-April 1 in San Diego.
However, the BA announced in January the date shift for the event, which draws approximately 15,000 attendees from all over the world.
In 2020, the pandemic forced the BA to cancel the in-person versions of its annual events: CBC, GABF, SAVOR and HomebrewCon. Ticket sales, sponsorships and advertising sales to those four events accounted for 70% of the BA’s annual revenue. As a result, the organization was forced to eliminate the jobs of more than a third of its staff in two separate layoffs.