DENVER — The Great American Beer Festival has changed a lot in the 40 years since it started.
"Pulling off this crazy idea was a pretty hairy adventure," said the founder of the festival, Charlie Papazian.
In 1982, when the festival started in Boulder, there were 750 attendees and 20 breweries on hand. That was about half of the total number of breweries in America back then.
Fast forward to 2022, when the festival is expecting 500 breweries, 90 of them from Colorado, and around 40,000 people to attend.
It is understandable that some could forget that the festival is a competition as well. Judges will taste more than 10,000 beers and award the top three in more than 100 categories.
For the tasting of all of that beer, there will be 5,000 kegs of beer, 2,200 cases of beer and more than three miles of draft beer lines in the festival hall.
The Great American Beer Festival 2022 starts on October 6 and runs until October 8 at the Colorado Convention Center.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Latest from 9NEWS
9NEWS+
9NEWS+ has multiple live daily shows including 9NEWS Mornings, Next with Kyle Clark and 9NEWS+ Daily, an original streaming program. 9NEWS+ is where you can watch live breaking news, weather updates, and press conferences. You can also replay recent newscasts and find videos on demand of our top stories, local politics, investigations and Colorado specific features.
To download 9NEWS+ on Roku search for KUSA.
To download 9NEWS+ on Fire TV search for 9NEWS.