Sure the 200-plus beers that will win medals today at the Great American Beer Festival are “country class” (and maybe world class), but that doesn’t guarantee you’ll wax romantic after settling in with a pint or two of one of them.

No, nothing’s wrong with the judging process – I agree with Michael Jackson’s assertion that the GABF (and World Beer Cup) approach to evaluating beers is the finest anywhere.

However you need spend only a few minutes talking with judges or a make a few stops on the festival floor to be reminded that for some conversations we must separate drinking beer from tasting beer.

Drinking includes the pleasure of pints in the pub with buddies, while cooking at the grill, or over dinner with friends. You might occasionally take a sip and think, “Whew, that’s something special,” but that’s not required.

Tasting is different. Tasting allows us to experience, and perhaps evaluate, many beers rather quickly. In the case of judging GABF, this year 107 judges had just five sessions to evaluate more than 2,800 beers. Beers entered in popular categories (IPA was the largest, with 120) had to pass through three rounds.

In the case of festival goers, it means tasting just one ounce at a time.

Brewmaster Matt Van Wyk of Flossmoor Station (Illinois) judged for the first time this year. “There were so many beers I thought, ‘What a great beer in a two-ounce sample,'” he said. “It makes you think you (brewers) have to enter something that will stand out for two ounces.”

That’s not the way Van Wyk thinks when he is formulating a recipe. “You’re not looking at guidelines you have to hit,” he said. “You are thinking of what flavors you will like and what the customers who will be drinking your beer will like.”

Van Wyk paused to pour a sample of Zwicklebier for Darron Welch of Pelican Pub & Brewery (Oregon). Welch took a sip and smiled. “This reminds me of Germany,” he told Van Wyk.

The beer stands out at a single ounce (the festival serving size) at a time, but part of that is because it’s easy to think: “This would be great in a half-liter mug.”

Welch spent some time Thursday seeking out saisons (he has one entered, but mostly he’s still tasting others and thinking about ways to make his better). “I didn’t find a bad one,” he said. “But at the judging table I’m going to be less about ‘I really like this’ and more about ‘This isn’t as balanced or . . .”

Welch’s beers captured five medals last year, but he understands they might win none this year.

“It’s fun, it’s agonizing,” he said. “And if you win it’s good marketing. Your customers have an affirmation from the outside that the beer they though was great really is. I’ll go back and somebody will say, ‘I told you so.'”

Of course those customers aren’t just tasting. They’re drinking.

Further reading: New Beer Rule #3.

About the photo: The festival added a new diversion this year: “You Be The judge.” Festival goers may sit down with a GABF judge and evaluate and discuss a beer (“blind” as the judges do, rather than the unveiled pints on the floor). Here Will Meyers from Cambridge Brewing (Massachusetts) shares his knowledge.

Snowing on Raton, come morning I’ll be through the hills and gone.
Mother thinks the road is long lonely, little brother thinks the road is straight and fine, will little darlin’ thinks the road is soft and lovely,
I’m thankful that old road is a friend of mine.

– From Snowing on Raton, by Townes Van Zandt

I was not snowing yesterday when I drove over Raton Pass, happily because we’ve been on the stretch of Interstate 25 in a snowstorm before and I don’t recommend it.

However, shortly after I reached Colorado this pickup passed me with these really impressive looking antlers in the back. I hauled out my camera and took this picture (just for you) before he sped on his way. The truck had Wyoming plates so the driver apparently had farther to go then Denver (210 miles up the road).

Something I never would have seen had I flown to Denver (less than an hour from wheels up to wheels down from Albuquerque, but nearly five hours by the time you deal with airports – only 90 minutes faster than driving).

When I left the canyon I popped a Kevin Welch CD into the player. His music is perfect for that stretch of the road, foothills and antelope to the left, prairie that stretches to Kansas and beyond to the right.

Oh, I do love living in the West.

Tomorrow I’m off to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. No complaints — or this wouldn’t be 15 years in a row (a streak that ends after this year — but I am aware that: a) it won’t be the biggest thing in Denver during the next week, and b) most beer drinkers around America, let alone the world, don’t give a hoot.

Although I travel with a specific to-do list I also know that good sense disappears one ounce at a time in the Colorado Convention Center. Every reporter has a certain number of story ideas shoved in his or her face, then you run across a surprising beer or two, get corraled into focusing on a particular style (like barley wine; bad idea) and come Monday you think, “Who cares about any of this?”

So I’m giving you a chance to make suggestions. This might be a really bad idea if what follows is deathly silence. Don’t be shy. I might even ask a superstar brewer your question.

What would you write about if you were going to be at the Great American Beer Festival? Would you . . .

– Lean on Vinnie Cilurzo to reveal what sort of beer he intends to put in all the used Cabernet Sauvignon barrels he has acquired?

– Take tasting notes on every beer from newish breweries like FiftyFifty, Hopworks Urban and Hollister?

– Ask Garrett Oliver what the next beer will be on the 750ml bottle series (while sampling an ounce of the wonderful Local One)? Note: A bad idea because he has promised to delay the next release by a month every time he is asked this question.

– Snarf down every bit of food in the 3,124 food and beer tastings planned for the rest of the week?

– Write haikus?

You tell me.