Ore Dock Brewing Co. heads to Great American Beer Fest

Folks from the Ore Dock Brewing Company have packed up and headed west to Denver for the 2014 Great American Beer Fest.

Brewer Nick VanCourt and others flew out to Colorado Tuesday to prepare for the three day event, which kicked off today. The Ore Dock is the only U.P. brewery attending this year’s fest, and will join 15 other Michigan breweries to represent the state on the national level.

“That’s the neat thing about the festivals,” Brewery Liaison Adam Robarge said. “You can find beer anywhere, and certainly you know where you can get great beer from the breweries that have established themselves. It’s an awesome thing to be able to represent yourself next to them. But ourselves, having faith in the product that we provide, and knowing that there are a lot of other small breweries out there doing the same thing, it’s really a fascinating concept to be able to taste great beer while there are so many different options.”

Breweries attending this year’s fest were chosen through a lottery system by region.

The Great American Beer Fest also features a competition portion that is open to all U.S. breweries. The team at Ore Dock is confident in their product because of one major asset specific to the U.P.

Robarge said, “One thing, for sure, is Lake Superior itself, and that’s something we really pride ourselves on, being a part of a community on Lake Superior, but also brewing with Lake Superior water, a superior source brand, which we’re really proud of and really like to promote. That water is about as good as it gets when it comes to brewing. All Lake Superior asks is to be heated up in order to brew beer with it, and that’s a pretty fantastic phenomenon.”

Ore Dock will be featuring the Reclamation IPA, the Saison and the Porter in competition.

The fest runs through Saturday and will feature over 50,000 people sampling what they can of the more than 3,000 beers being offered.