The Great American Beer Festival is 43 years old and feeling every year of it.
For decades, the craft beer industry’s signature event was a raucous celebration, drawing brewers from across the country for multiple sessions of the world’s biggest beer selection. But in recent years, Denver’s streets have grown eerily quiet during fest week. The local buzz feels muted. Flights to the Mile High City, once packed with brewery hoodies, hats, and T-shirts, are now noticeably devoid of brewery swag.
And that’s understandable. The craft beer industry faces mounting challenges: slowing sales, rising competition from ready-to-drink beverages and weed, and shifting consumer preferences toward health-conscious and non-alcoholic options. The industry lost nearly 4-percent of its volume in 2024. Hundreds of breweries continue to close each year, and new openings have plateaued. Closings even outpaced openings for the first time in nearly two decades. Attendance has dipped so sharply that GABF dropped one of its sessions altogether.
Escalating costs for ingredients, labor, and distribution are further squeezing already-thin margins, and these pressures aren’t likely to ease anytime soon. As another warning sign, the Brewers Association quietly shortened its annual Craft Brewers Conference from four days to three. Attendance has stalled and declined in recent years, a practical reason for the change but also a symbolic one, showing how the industry is contracting. The BA even had to move the World Beer Cup Awards to accommodate the shorter schedule.
For years now, we’ve all been bombarded with a relentless, fucking stream of bad news, from the closing of your local brewery to the losses of Upright, TRVE, Nebraska Brewing, Iron Hill, 21st Amendment, and many, many others. Truly bummer shit.
Yet despite the gloom, craft brewers still carry an enduring mix of optimism, passion, and sheer stubbornness. They struggle, but they fight. Overcoming impossible odds has always defined the craft brewer’s experience. Daily battles against ruthless macros, disinterested distributors, and drinkers wary of fuller-flavored beer are the foundation of craft beer’s story. Year after year, decade after decade, craft brewers introduced customers to new and unfamiliar flavors, one bottle, one pint at a time. And it worked. They changed palates, expanded what “beer” could mean, and exported that vision around the world.
That kind of perseverance deserves celebration, no matter how dark things seem. The GABF remains one of the few moments when craft brewers gather in one place to celebrate the best of what they do. And it’s still worth celebrating. The once-stodgy festival is evolving to meet the changing industry and audience, trying to transform itself from a rigid tasting event into something more fun, inclusive, and experiential. Last year, the BA reimagined the fest into a multi-layered experience designed to appeal to GABF’s wildly diverse crowd, from Gen Z to Boomers.
When I first walked into the festival hall last year, I thought the power had gone out. The “Fright” and “Blast-Off” sections were cast in near darkness, with booths lit only by strings of holiday lights. Volunteers and attendees wore wild costumes. I watched people sip piña colada milkshake IPAs while polka bands played in the German-inspired “Prost!” biergarten. I marveled at Lucha Libre wrestling and winced at mechanical bull riding. And I saw a lot of smiling people having a great time drinking some of the world’s best beer.
This year, I’ll be celebrating at the Denver Rare Beer Tasting, the sold-out event that supports the Pints for Prostates campaign, now in its 16th and final year. I’ll be judging the Alpha King Challenge, the long-running showdown of America’s hoppiest beers. And I’ll be hitting multiple GABF sessions, talking with brewers, and trying to glimpse where beer goes next. Because there’s always a next for craft beer, even when the future feels uncertain.
Never forget how far flavorful beer has come in this country. The rise of craft beer remains one of the least likely American success stories. Nearly every force was marshaled against it. And while the road has been rough in recent years, I firmly believe craft beer is here to stay.
Andy Crouch is the Publisher of All About Beer. He is the author of two very outdated books, Great American Craft Beer and The Good Beer Guide To New England. He is a devoted lager enthusiast and pilsner apologist. Drop him a line at andy@allaboutbeer.com.