Dark Lord Day (DLD) 2015

4th year in a row. Had a great time. We were the first people to line up at the south gate around 7:30-8pm the night before. Had a lot of fun with my group sharing some bottles, fighting the elements, and managed to get a few hours of sleep during the night. The morning gave way to an epic bottle share with a bunch of great people....

Got my four bottles and won a Vanilla. Got all the glasses and hot sauce bottles I was hoping to get. Wish the bottle sales line (group B) would have gone a bit faster. Enjoyed some chicken wings and man, Zombie Dust tasted so good there...I really think I'm sticking to draft ZD in the future.

Hopefully I ran into some of you all during the day. I spent a bit of time in the morning before the event walking the line and sharing pours of beers I brought...including a magnum of Casey East Bank. Thanks to all who shared beers with me as well. Great time!!

 

Briefly - first DLD, had a blast, already wanting to go next year or even go back and do yesterday all over. Too much fun.

More wordy - My buddy Mark and I (Jay) got in from Nashville on Friday night and made it to the parking area (the United Way lot on Superior Ave right by the North Gate) at 7 AM. We walked around a bit (a lot of folks there already) and then went over and lined up by the South Gate with a bunch of stuff in tow for sharing (BCBS, The Abyss '14, Hopslam, Yazoo Sue, last two years of Black Butte, Terrapin W-n-B '12 and '14) around 8 AM. We ended up under a Notre Dame tent with the nicest group of guys including Clark from Iowa, the owner of the tent from Chicago, and some other southerners from KY and AL. Shared some amazing stuff over the next 2 hours, including PseudoSue, Prop, BCBS Coffee, Kuhnehenn 4th Dimension, some Straight to Ale stuff and one guy's awesome homebrew version of Supplication along with real Supplication.

We were among the first 1,000 or so to enter and grabbed a table under the big tent as a home base. We proceeded to have DL and ZD on draft. I left around 11:30 for the car and grabbed a nap. My buddy and I got in the Group C line around 1:15 or so and proceeded to wait 2+ hours, but it was fun with tons of beer going around. I needed the time to sober up a bit, anyway. We each got Golden Tickets, so I grabbed a coffee variant while he napped a barrel aged.

Got back to our spot after dropping off our loot, and all the guys were still hanging. My BCBS wasn't even opened or touched, if that says anything about the crazy level of bottle sharing going on. It was insane. The draft choices weren't great around 4-6 (pretty pedestrian fare by then, as mentioned in other posts in this thread). We ate a bit more, drank a bit more, and headed back to the hotel to watch the Preds blow it to the Blackhawks.

Biggest regret is one you could see a mile away ... not hydrating well and not eating enough in the morning to pre-game for what ended up being a more epic day of drinking and sharing than I could have anticipated. I think we had good intentions but got caught up in the fun and got a bit ahead of ourselves early.

Biggest surprise is how smoothly it all went, how nice folks were, how much everyone shared and how, at the end of the day, the bottles of DL are just a bonus on top of getting to hang and share tons of good stuff. I can see why folks would want to go as General Admission.

I think we had some beginners' luck in terms of things going so smoothly, honestly. I hate to hear that other people had bad experiences. This fest is worth the travel and general pain-in-the-ass-ed-ness to get to.

PS Would love to hear from any of the folks we stood in line with. We tried to find our Chicago friend who provided shelter under the Notre Dame tent, but it was to no avail ...

 

My second year going to DLD. Awesome time, ready for next year!

We arrived at 11:30, waited in the outside line to get in for about 30 mins. Not bad. Our group of 4 (2 Group B, 2 Group C) managed 3 golden tickets, vanilla, coffee, muerte. Had a blast sharing with folks in line. No significant waits for food or guest taps made the day more enjoyable. I didn't waste any time hovering around the guest taps waiting for whales, but I was super geeked about all of the guest taps I did get- awesome brews from HF, Mikkeler, Real Ale, Half Acre, Victory, FFF. Met up with some cool BAs for some trades.

Once it stopped raining, the weather was more manageable, but we were all soaked to the bone. Finished the night watching awesome sets by Obituary and COC. We all love metal, so it was a great time all around. Despite being covered in filth, the mud only made it more fun. We stayed till the end, even checked out Big Freedia.

An awesome day. Very smoothly run. A great celebration of 3 Floyds, craft beer, and the community that makes it what it is.

 

I was the idiot that knew it was going to rain but still forgot rain gear
I had the gray Bells hoodie on until some guy offered me his extra blue poncho to put over it

 

It's pancreatic.

 

First DLD here. My wife was in a wheelchair, so that provided quite a few challenges, but also allowed us to bypass the lines, which was kind of awesome. Pushing around a wheelchair really provides you a unique perspective at an event like this. Most of the people were super cool and helpful, but the staff had no clue what was going on. We were told to go here and there and we cant do this and that. All of which was conflicting with other things we were told from staff. We showed up and were told there was no handicap parking, after being told via email that there was. Fortunately, the guy let us through to try and sure enough, we found handicap parking.
The absolutely most ridiculous thing had to be the handicap bathroom placements. We were told via email that every medical station would have a handicap bathroom. Instead, there were two handicap bathrooms: one next to stage 1, behind a mud bog, and one next to stage 2, across 50 feet of loose gravel. Unacceptable. Simple things like blocking off the north east guest tap parking lot made it impossible for us to go over there. They could of made things a ton better by just javing a path. I know that this is an outdoor event and it will never be fully handicap accessible, but a little bit of staff training would of helped so much.
In the end, we met great people, drank awesome beers, and had a blast, despite the weather. Hopefully we will be back next year!

 

Was lucky enough to try coffee, and it's fantastic. I thought long and hard about picking it as my variant.

Not sure on the other . Really interested to hear about cherry.

 

anyone remember what Toppling Goliath provided for the guest taps? Was it ZeeLander?

 

The TG taps I had were PseudoSue and Regifter

 

What were the variants this year. I sure it's been asked 100 times, but I cannot find it on this 80 page thread.

 

We arrived at noon and immediately hit the taps north of the main bottle share tent. Had Abraxas, CBS, Sump, DL & DHPt5 over the next few hours. The guest taps were definitely my main focus early on this year and it paid off. Never had Abraxas before and was blown away by it.
Won a scratch off and picked the bourbon aged variant.
The rain certainly affected the mood of the event but still had a great time and can't wait for next year.

 

Bourbon BBl Aged
Muerte
Coffee
Vanilla Bean
Aquavit
2 Yr Portuguese Brandy
Cherry Cocoa Nibs
Earl of Biggleswade

 

Glad I stopped by the pub when they opened this afternoon. I nabbed 2 cases of Zombie Dust from the kiosk. It never was posted on the to go list and the "No Zombie" sign was posted on the door but it was flying out of there.

 

My wife and I attended our second DLD in a row and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. However, we were fortunate enough to connect with a great group not far from the South Gate (Indy, NE Ohio, Michigan, and Iowa). We arrived at 6:45 and stood in the rain, miserable, despite appropriate clothing and umbrellas. Sometime after 7, we were invited to join this group in their tent and the day took off from there. The three hours until the gates opened flew by as we enjoyed the company and the stupendous amount of fantastic beers that were shared. We even met a minority owner of Rhinegeist and are looking forward to a visit to the brewery this year. Some of the beers we had before entering the event included, Classic Gueuze, Mexican Wedding Cake, Heady Topper, Sip of Sunshine, Pliny the Elder, Reposé, Hunahpu, and Yellow Rose. The tally, including guest taps and bottle shares, approached 50 beers by 6 pm.

We had fairly good success with the guest taps, picking up Citra Single Hop and Edward from Hill Farmstead, DL 2014, 2015, DL BA 2015, DL BA Vanilla 2015, and Blot Out The Sun.

We were in group D and picked up our allocation although the line seemed longer than last year. My wife scored a golden ticket and we chose the 2 Year Portuguese Brandy. Looking forward to opening that for a very special occasion.

Despite the rain, the event was absolutely wonderful. The graciousness and generosity of everyone we ran into was what this event should always be about. Definitely feel for those with less fortunate experiences than ours. Can't wait until next year's event.

 

1st year for me and my buddies, and we had an absolutely blast, despite the shitty weather! I was battling a pretty nice little over hang before I got there, wasn't sure I was going to have a good time. Boy was I wrong! WhIle waiting to get in, had an awesome share of a Prop and a few other solid beers.

Inside... Holy f we had some awesome shares going on. I don't think I've ever had so many world class beers in my life. Thanks to everyone who so willingly shared straight up whales. F'ing awesome. On top of that, if you were in the right place at the right time, very fun pours from the guests, and 3FFF!

Of the 5 of us, two of us (yay me) were lucky enough to get 2 "yes" tickets. We grabbed two coffees (vanilla was gone), which I'm confident was the right choice! We are very excited for our local reunion to open one up!

All in all, weather sucked, lines could be a little brutal, but that was awesome!

 

Another great year despite the rain.

Seems like every year the lines get worse as the groups go through. Group A goes quick and every group after that takes longer and longer. I think they need to institute a rule where, if have Group A tickets, you MUST buy your bottles at the allotted time for that group. Same goes for every group after that. Don't want to go at the time you purchased tickets for? Then you'll have to wait until after all the groups are done and line up.

 

I've been saying this for years. But each time I'm told by entitled people that since they can't pull themselves away from drinking, or wait in line alone it isn't cool to suggest that. Honestly I wonder why the groups have end times rather than just start times.

I'd like there to be a final F line. For Failing to get in line on time, or I don't give an F to get in line on time.

Sorry but it's really not fair to people with later tickets to wait longer. Buy a late ticket if you want to go late.

 

Think I hung out with you and your wife. I was the one in the Iowa Hawkeyes hat and rain poncho. Your wife made that great choc bark.

 

The only thing I can suggest is to email [email protected] as they are the event organizers. Maybe if enough people send comments they'll consider making changes. I'm all for if you miss your group, you are SOL but I can only imagine the number of sob stories they'll get with that approach & they probably don't want to deal with that BS. There has to be some way to improve the bottle line process though.

 

Was there yesterday for the first time and it was a blast! My group got there mid afternoon. I had some of the best beers yesterday! Well worth standing out in the pouring rain, making new friends and talking about beer all day. I'm already looking forward to next year's adventure!