DLD 2013 retrospective

Yes, it was Vesterbro. What was this variant? The server just told me "it's like a lambic."

 

Huge improvement from the last several years. $30 was worth the increased space, organization, porta potties, DL drafts outside, no line at the guest taps, tons of bottle share space, bands playing outside.

The Dark Lord draft line was long, but not as a bad as it was back in 2010 or so. There were line cutters waiting for BA variants to go on tap and then swooping in, but it wasn't too bad.

Thought 2013 Dark Lord was way too sweet. Tastes like green apples. Will need to age these.

 

Would of loved to see you knock the crapper over and get poooo all over him.. Lol would of made my freaking day.. Heck my week! :-)

 

I thought there were some outstanding changes to the fest this year. Having room to move around was priceless. Managed to get a cup of 2013 Dark Lord and I also have to agree with kodt that it was too sweet, but at least I got to taste it this go around. The guest taps were ridiculous. I could have stayed in that area all day.

Got to have some KBS and Doom, both given to me by generous fellow beer geeks I met along the way. At one point in line I was chatting with a guy from Tennessee who brought his own chili home brew. Nearly ripped off my face with the heat of it. Awesome.

This brings me to my only beef, THE LINE. I had group E so it was a royal mess. I think we waited almost four hours to buy our allotment. I didn't score a variant this time around but I'm not sad about that.

Didn't run into any jerks, just really good folks. All around I'd call it a success.

I do feel like a truck hit me, so off I go to nurse my battle wounds...

 

Yes, ok. As in acceptable. There was a time once when acceptable was.. Ah... Acceptable.

 

Positives:
Guest taps - these were the highlight for me. you could walk up and get any number of great beers.
Larger area - not so congested.
Nice people in line - there were many and very generous.
Taps for regular DL and other FFF brews - same as guest taps.
FFF employees, security and Munster cops - I thought they were great. Yeah they got physical with some line-cutters, well good let's see more of that.
Weather - couldn't have been better.
Porta-potties as far as the eye can see including the DL allocation line, wonderful.

Negatives:
The DL allocation lines - terrible as always. The C group somehow developed lines to both the North and South. I was lucky to be in the North line and it still took close to 2 hours. I can only imagine what happened to the poor people in the South line. Inside the brewery the hold-up wasn't so much the DL as the line to get ZD and others - this was poorly organized.
BA DL variant line - too many line jumpers from the edges. I stood in line a few minutes and saw how it was going so didn't bother.
Line jumpers - as always they were endemic, even uncoupling barricades to cut in line. And yeah I did speak up a couple of times with people cutting directly in front of me but I can't be the police force for the entire line, nor do I have any desire to be.
Parking - 20 bucks to park a half mile away. It was a nice walk so no big deal but somebody's making some bucks.
Decreased allocation/increased prices/pot luck whether your ticket is a winner.

Bottom line: Even given the improvements there's a good chance I won't be back. For two people it's 80 bucks just to walk in, then after that pay inflated prices and stand in lines. I hit some liquor stores while in Chicago and you know, there are a lot of good beers out there that are sitting on shelves. It's amazing how the selection has improved just in the past 3 years. I can't criticize anybody a bit that feels differently though as there are a lot of positives to DLD.

 

Best DLD I have ever been to. Organization was waaaay better than ever, great guest taps, super friendly staff, and the people I got to hang out with made the whole weekend amazing. Besides my regular crew, cheers to BigLobo, MNBearsfan, Leschkie, Aasher, MarkIntihar, Neorunner, PitaSoup, Crossovert, BackFat (even though I hate him), and many more I am forgetting for making this weekend unforgettable.

 

^^^^^Really already

 

I could barely finish my draft.

 

Well This is my 3rd year! And yes it was the Best ran to date.. But still that isn't saying a hole lot... But to be honest you are NEVER going to please everyone..

Well this year I got E...
Got in line at 5pm and walked out with my DL at 8:30pm.... 3 1/2 hrs to BUY ... NOT be given 3 bottles of decent beer.. Yeah i feel I got swindled but it was my choice to come and my choice to stand in line so I really have no one to blame but my self.. I see no way FFF can really correct this unless they have a LINE of like 100 Security guards the whole way down and not allow any line jumpers or saving spots for friends or anything like that.. And even that wouldn't help as most of these volunteers could care less or don't know what to regulate. So unless you can CLONE "THE ROCK" of " Vin Diesel" 100 times and make them all patrol the ticket line! its going to be that long every year..(for Group E atleast)

So saying all that. The guest taps... TACOS... Let me say it again TACOS... and bottle sharing/space WAS AWESOME....

BUT I will never be back to this event again if E ticket is my only choice.. ITS just not worth it to ME !! I am willing to wait 30min...45min.. even an hr. for decent beer. BUT only 1 time am I willing to wait 3 1/2 hrs for it...

So Hopefully I get a A, B, or C ticket next year..(the first 2 years i had A or B time slots for bottles.)

As i would love to return to DLD every year!

90% Good job FFF

 

My first DLD, my friend's fourth. I couldn't have asked for a better initiation. We were in Group B and it took us about 90 minutes to get inside the brewery. Jeff and Chris from St. Louis and a couple other folks made the wait worthwhile; lovely people. And the bands were great. The crowd during Pig Destroyer engaged in the gentlest moshing I've ever seen.

From what a lot of people were saying, the group process seems to break down about halfway through every year, so I wonder whether a solution wouldn't be similar to Founder's releases for KBS and others--two or three days of simple pickups and the big party on the last day. I think most people would opt to attend the big bash, but I think a sizable enough contingent would be happy just to pick up an allotment.

 

Unbelievable event. I'm dieng in the airport as I type this, but overa it was an A+

First timer as a Californian and it couldn't have gone better. Vanilla on draft was amazing and the sharing with all the great BAs was great. I wish I could remember everyone's name but thanks to all thise who stopped by and joined our little circle. Group D took a long time but even waiting in line was great. I thought for sure the three of us brought way too many beers yet only one survived (cable car) for the ride back which we immediately drank and went to sweet bar to crush KBS on tap. Props to Wal Mart for the greatest 9 dollar gigantor cooler satchel thing that kept everything cold. By the time we made t to the tent the ground was like sludge, I'm wondering where that came from, hopefully not dead suds.

I didn't meet a single person that wasn't enjoyable and the generosity was shared by all.

 

******* LOST AND FOUND *******

I found a blue backpack with beer and other items. If it is your bag send me BM with what was in it and I can return to ya. I also found a brown backpack with some items. ditto on how to find the owner. Cheers! Fitz

 

Who did I share my 12 VB dl with? I would like to once again thank everyone for being awesome. I had the meats and cheese.

 

The setup was much better this year.

The allotment line... not so much. Groups A and B seemed to go well enough. Things started to go downhill when the group C line split and there didn't seem to be a consensus among employees as to which line was the real line. Unfortunately the people I was with had D and E tickets... can anybody say clusterfuck? At about 3:30 (you know, when group D was supposed to line up) we were told by an employee that group D wouldn't begin lining up for another two hours. By about 4:00, not only had group D started lining up (did they make an announcement or anything? 30 minutes, 2 hours, same thing, right?), the line was down the street, around the corner, to the cul-de-sac, and back around towards the hospital. We didn't get our beer until about 7:00.
The E tickets went unused; I was outvoted and people didn't want to wait at least another 3-4 hours.

Seriously, I thought the lines for B/C last year got out of hand, but they were nowhere near as bad as this. What the hell happened? My guess is that they added groups D and E but kept it at the same number of people per group. If so... guys, really, it doesn't work like that. Instead, how about adding more people in the brewery to distribute the beer? They could probably have doubled the number of people working in there, and therefore doubled the speed of the line, without even having to add more tables.

Some queues for the BA Dark Lord taps would have been nice too... I got in line for vanilla pretty much right when the gates opened, yet the keg kicked before I even got close, because apparently a great many people don't understand how a line works. Closing the brewpub and putting the variants on tap outside was a nice idea, but short some sort of line control it just turned into a mess. Hell, in previous years I had to wait for hours to get inside, but at least then I eventually got some.

In short, Dark Lord Day this year was great... except for the parts actually having to do with Dark Lord.

 

Best Dld in years! And this years darklord is amazing!! They learned from their mistakes!! Very drinkable this year!

 

I don't know how possible this would be, but it would be nice if DL and Variant taps were a part of your Golden Ticket. Sort of like what they did at the Anniversary Party. Every ticket gets one punch for a small sample of DL and maybe throw in a second scratch off area that, if you win, gets you a sample of a Variant.

 

This was my second DLD in a row and this years event was way better than last year. First off the day couldn't have been nicer. Last year it was rainy all morning and cold/cloudy all day. The additional space this year was totally perfect with minimal congestion (other than DL bottle lines and DL draft line). Everyone I talked to seemed to be having an awesome time as well. The guest taps this year were incredible and those brisket tacos were so good I got a second order. This event was way better than Hunahpu day this year in terms of space, lack of congestion, and no lines for the bathrooms. Don't mind paying the $70 for 2 tickets at all after the improvements they made this year and I think DL is tasting just fine!

 

That would make the line much longer than it needs to be