Forget your paddles at GABS, go for the glass.

This year will be the third time I’ve attended GABS. Being a bit of an overplanner, I tended to go nuts and work out all the paddles I would try.

These would be structured around getting all five samples from the one bar and then, within each paddle, sorting them from lightest to heaviest, to ensure I was tasting them appropriately.
Then I would revise them, because I found another beer I had to try.

I would link to these posts but, to be frank, they’re a trifle embarassing. But you can search for them yourself if you want. Some of them may even have been tagged ‘‘what a dickhead’’ (that’s a joke: don’t actually go looking for that tag).

In the second session last year I stumbled on the best way to approach GABS. Well best for me anyway. And I will link to this post, because it’s not dickheady in any way. Basically, you forget about the damn tasting paddles and treat GABS like a one big bar (which it kind of is when you think about it) where you check out the taps and then go ‘‘I’ll have one of those’’.

Instead of getting a small tasting cup, you get them to fill your GABS Coopers’-branded glass. Now, I will be doing a bit of research ahead of time. But that will consist of nothing more than looking through the GABS beer list and circling the stuff I want to try.

Some will hate this approach because it means they will surely miss out on trying beers. But I figure, unless you’re going to every session and have an iron liver, you’ll miss out on beers anyway.

Also, when I buy a new beer at a bottle shop or bar I don’t want a little taster, I want a glassful. And it’ll be the same at GABS too. It just seems more fun that way. And just for shits and giggles I might ask Twitter to tell me which beer to drink.

There will be some tasting paddle use – for me it seems the smart way to navigate through the high-alcohol beers at GABS. But the others, well, they’ll be drunk in big glasses.