Anyone planning to get a last minute ticket to this year’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver next month is essentially out of luck.

Three of the four GABF sessions are sold out, and only a few tickets remain for the Thursday, Oct. 9 session. The Friday night and Saturday afternoon sessions (Oct. 10 and 11) sold out at the beginning of September, and now Saturday night is sold out as well.

In what is unquestionably the coolest convention ever created (except for maybe the Kiss conventions in the mid 90s) lucky ticket holders for this year’s GABF will get to sample 1,969 beers from 432 breweries, all from the U.S., the greatest beer nation in the world.

For a beer nut, there is no better time than sampling unlimited one ounce samples of your favorite brews and discovering new ones — all with over 10,000 people at each session who share the same interests. The tickets are expensive, but I have never heard anyone complain about the $50 ticket price once they get in the doors and start to drink.

The event just keeps getting more and more popular. It was just a few years ago that I was able to buy tickets for the coveted Saturday afternoon session just the day before. This year, it was sold out over a month in advance.

The lesson learned here is to buy early — and not just tickets. I just barely got a hotel room within walking distance of the Denver Convention Center — and I booked my room in June.

I am fortunate to be joined at the GABF this year by Statesman photographer Kerry Maloney.

We plan to shoot some cool video and talk to the folks of our favorite pacific northwest breweries going to the festival (including Boise’s own medal winning Kevin Bolen of the Ram) and hopefully some Idahoans other than ourselves who are going this year.

Check next Friday’s Scene magazine for more details about this years GABF and who will represent for Idaho. And be sure to check Idahostatesman.com between Oct. 9-to-11 for video updates, blogs and other cool content, as we tell you guys what is going on in beer nation USA.

And if you are going to the GABF from Idaho, drop me an email at porr@idahostatesman.com or call me at the paper at (208) 373-6619 so I can find you at the festival and get your take on the event.