Feature: Biggest U.S. beer festival draws thousands from around the world

By the time the last of the 60,000 beer lovers left Denver's Convention Center early Sunday morning to end the 35th annual Great American Beer Festival, America's western states had been recognized again as global leaders in the brewing art and the explosive craft beer industry.

In the 2016 competition, judges awarded 136 of the 285 medals on Saturday for excellence to commercial and homemade brewers coming from the four western states of California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

Beers were judged in 90 different categories that ranged from "Wood and Barrel-Aged" beer, to "Fruit Wheat" and "Honey Beers."

Due to Colorado's legalization of marijuana, Dad and Dudes Breweria in Aurora, Colorado even offered "cannabis-infused" beer that owner Mason Hembree said attracted tasters from around the world.

The judging began Wednesday, as two big, tractor-trailer trucks pulled up to the downtown Denver Marriott Hotel, where hundreds of volunteers began unloading thousands of beer samples, shipped from across the country, that had been carefully stored in climate-controlled warehouses.

A total of 265 judges from 12 countries then began the painstaking task of judging 7,400 different beers, a process that took three days and was exhausting.

"I'm done," Jeff Mendel, one of the judges, told Xinhua. "It's been a very busy three days, we've sampled many, many beers, and I need to rest."

However, craft beer lovers thoroughly enjoyed their time at the biggest beer festival in the United States, which is also the biggest tickets beer festival in the world.

"It's just amazing -- Colorado has the best craft beer on planet Earth," said Ludvig Ragnarsson, 25, a Swedish native, and math and economics major at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "We used to call American beer 'piss water,' but not anymore."

Ragnarsson was referring to the light lager American beer industry that dominated American beer tastes for decades after Prohibition ended in 1933, until craft beer entered the market in the 1970s.

"When we were growing up, we were duped and brainwashed by the beer companies that beer was all light lager," said Robert Pease, president of the Brewers Association, the national group that hosted the three-day festival. "They weren't interested in exploring all the styles that beer is all about."

What craft beer is all about these days is a 55.7-billion-U.S.-dollar industry that has not only taken a "significant bite" out of "giant, industrial beer company" profits, but "defined quality beer" across the globe, and "saved beer for the United States," Pease told Xinhua.

Pease said the U.S. craft breweries now number a staggering 4,600, and account for 12 percent of the overall market share by volume and 21 percent by dollars.

"When TV advertising came on after Prohibition, beer companies were more interested in making money over what it took to make great beer," Pease said. "When they tell you beer is best served ice cold, you've got to know something is wrong. All cold does is pulverize the taste."

The craft beer craze had drawn millions of Americans, and packed the 54,000 square meters of downtown Denver's Convention Center with thousands of beer festival attendees, who sampled some 3,400 different beers at requisite "mid-40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures," poured by some 800 brewers in attendance, Pease said.

"There are people here from across the country to sample the finest craft beer in the world," Kansas native Adam Callahan, 48, told Xinhua Saturday night. "It was well worth the entry fee."

Attendees paid 75 dollars per ticket, for gate revenues that topped 4.5 million dollars, and attracted Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who honored the Boulder, Colorado-based Brewers Association Friday night "for inspiring us to consider possibilities where we had not seen them before."

Few predicted the rampant growth of an industry that in 1983 had 50 craft breweries, had grown to 300 in 1993, and to 1,000 by 1996, according to Mendel, who is also the co-owner of Longmont's Left Hand Brewery, one of Colorado's "Big Four" craft breweries.

Mendel said there are two new breweries opening in the United States every day, with the most in U.S. history, 5,000, predicted to be online in 2017.

John Lassiter, who had traveled more than 3,000 km to Denver from Portland, Maine, was thrilled his hometown's Allagash Brewing Co. captured a gold medal in the competitive "Belgian-Style Tripel" category.

"Allagash has been open since 1995. It is an established, quality brewery," Lassiter said. "The Allagash Tripel is delicious, like many of the beers here."

None of the 10,000 who attended the last night of the festival seemed to disagree, as the sounds of happy revelers could be heard in the streets of Denver's downtown business district until early Sunday morning.

Despite the "all you can drink" event, the crowd was extraordinarily peaceful.

One Denver police officer told Xinhua "it's been very quiet," as the shouts of beer-drinking festival visitors could be heard in the distance.

A majority of visitors were in their 20s and 30s and preferred the India Pale Ale beers, according to event officials, but people of all ages attended.

"We've got a ride back to our hotel," said Tom McIntyre, 48, who had traveled from Kansas for the event.

"We're not driving after this evening," he said.

Pedicab driver Adrian Will was lined up outside the Convention Center with a long line of similar taxis.

"It's been a very busy night. I've had six rides already," Will said, noting that younger festival visitors were "heading out to local bars," while the older crowd was going back to downtown Denver hotels, that were fully booked over the weekend. Endi