Dark Lord Day 2016

I know I missed out on the barrel aged palo santo last year, which was really the only guest tap I was super excited about trying. Came in at like 1PM.

 

Right when the gates opened at 10am last year, while everyone sprinted to get poorly screenprinted glasses (shots fired!), we went straight to the taps. Not joking here: NO ONE in line. Had a Hill Farm and 2011 DL right off the bat. Unless you're into collecting merch, go git chu some good draft beer right away.

 

So if it's anything like last year, even if I get session A, I'm still barely making the time slot before session B starts (I think it took me nearly 90 minutes to get through the line last year).

 

Same here. Everyone ran past me to get in the group A line. Nobody was at the tap closest to the line entrance. I went straight there and got a '11 and '15 DL. Got into A line and still got my VBDL. Went straight to guest taps afterwards and got to try the Tequila Barrel Aged Palo. Never saw anything else crazy after that, though. Heard most of the 3F taps were tapping BA DL variants throughout the day. I'll probably try to hang around those this time if I can score tickets again.

 

I missed out on a ton of great stuff at the guest taps. I didn't have a single pour from any tap. My friend and I got in line at about 6:30am, a guy in front of us opened at bottle at 6:45am and from then on there was a constant stream of bottle shares. We were in line with four really great people and by the time I got my Dark Lord bottles I'd tried about 36 beers that I had never had before and headed back to the hotel. Didn't even consider going to the guest taps. This year will be different though. If the weather cooperates I'd like to do a sun up to sun down run.

Awesome. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Why are people worrying about lines in this thread. The beers you get in bottle sharing while in line are better than the taps.

 

you don't understand where you are. this is Beer Advocate. we freak out about everything here.

 

There were a few things on the guest taps that I would have liked to have tried but I agree with the bottle shares were top notch.

 

I got there around 3 last year and it seemed like all the guest taps stopped turning over either because a lot of people cleared out due to the rain or cause the taps were a bit mediocre or a combo of the 2.

 

That's unfortunate if it's the case. I was hoping for another party during fall like they did for the 15th anniversary...

 

Since everyone is guaranteed a variant this year... Is it safe to say that VBDL will be long gone by the end of group A? Didn't it make it into group B last year?

 

I think that's pretty likely. I believe it's FCFS this year. I still think they should pre-package the 5 bottles and just give them away at random.

 

ok noob question

session times are when you are allowed to enter the event or when you are allowed to pick up your Dark lord bottles?

 

pick up bottles.

 

If that's the case, then people who absolutely want the best shot at getting tickets should aim for groups D or E as they will theoretically sell out the slowest. Who knows, maybe FFF will allocate the variants into 5ths for each session (doubtful).

 

Mmm XX anniversary glassware...

 

Your DLD ticket allows you to come and go as you please; the only thing Session A, B, etc. refers to is when you can actually grab your allotment of Dark Lord bottles. You can stay foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

I think this is the first year that I'm not going to try and go crazy for the glassware. I have plenty of glasses to trade and hopefully can land any specialty glasses that way. Although I had zero problems with Dark Matter last year, so hopefully they'll all be easy to get.

 

Yeah I am doubtful of that as well. But there's a lot of time between now and then for them to change the process if they want to. I'm not going to try for A or B as I'd rather have a better shot at just getting tickets.