Beer milestones flow for unique GABS festival

The thirst for the unique beers at GABS is so strong that a special brew is poured every half-second.

Australia’s legs of the popular beer festival have been run and there are more records to sprout from the Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney events.

Over the course of the festivals, attendees were able to sample from up to 170 unique ‘Festival Beers & Ciders’ made for exclusive release at GABS, along with hundreds of core range and limited release brews from many of Australia and New Zealand’s leading breweries and cidermakers.

In 2019, the RateBeer People’s Choice Festival Beer was ‘Grape Bubblegum Sour’ from the Gold Coast’s Currumbin Valley Brewing. The 5% ABV Berliner Weisse style beer, which poured a deep purple colour, was inspired by Hubba Bubba’s Groovy Grape-flavoured bubblegum, described as ‘the taste of your chewy childhood’.

But there were other significant achievements for Guy Greenstone and Steve Jeffares, the brainstrust behind GABS, now in its seventh year.

One success was the Yenda’s Ferris Wheel of Beer raising $20,000 for Fight MND. In four years, people riding on the Ferris Wheel have helped raise a total of $65,000 for the charity.

Other notable milestones include –

• 44,500 attendees across Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

• Overall attendance beat the previous record by 32%.

• Almost 7,000 attendees at a sellout Session 1 at GABS Sydney, making this the largest single GABS session in history.

• 840 different beers, ciders, wines and spirits on offer across all events.

• 312,000 individual tasters poured across all events (2 per second).

• 22 litres of beer and cider served per minute.

GABS now heads overseas for its final event in Auckland on Saturday 29 June.