Dark Lord Day 2016

I snagged one of these as well thinking the exact same thing. Really hoping this one turns out to be great. Thankfully, I put my variant in my backpack and not my tote, because someone swiped the rest of my DL from under the table my group was sitting on.

 

Yep. I've seen lots of it every year I've gone.

When my buddy's tote got snatched we just walked up to the people that had it and took it back. We were both pretty hammered at that point and didn't want to deal with police or getting into a fight.

We were standing by the guest taps talking and both had our totes on the ground. He looked down and realized his had gone missing in the 30 seconds we were standing there. We looked over to the guest taps and 2 dudes were standing there with his tote on the ground right next to them. We knew it was his because you could clearly see his water bottle in it. They started to say something to us when we grabbed it, but we just ignored them and walked away. I think they were going to try to claim it was their bag and we were trying to take it from them. We lucked out that his water bottle was in it or they would've gotten away with it.

 

We did the same thing as soon as we got our bottles. Put the variants straight in our backpacks.

I think I recall seeing you looking for your bag. I was sitting at that picnic table when you were looking for the DL under it. Sucks that you lost your bottles, but at least you might stave off diabetes for a couple more years now.

 

I am right there with you on the Temeculan 3000. I was one of the first 10 through in group D and grabbed it.

 

I was looking around/under a table for my tote with regular DL as well (variant was already in my backpack). I was pretty drunk and worried and confused...turned out my buddy had it with him.

 

Ive been every year since 2008. Prob my favorite DLD. Need more food stations. I had BA Plead the 5th and Ba Muetre so thats was cool. Good vibes all around

 

With all the great strangers sharing great beer, this is really sad there are theives. Especially since everyone that got in the festival got their allotment of DL already and trying to steal more. Just plain greedy and if I was a betting person I am guessing these are the same people looking to sell these DL for a profit and have no care about the beer. I immediately put my allocation in my backpack and starting drinking and dishing out pours to strangers. My buddy was really hammered and i noticed his allotment was still in the tote bag on the ground. I quickly stashed his allotment in his backpack and tossed it on him. Glad to say we got home with all our bottles.

 

Seems like we're all on the same page. This was my consolation to missing out on any form of vanilla (0 for 3 on even trying it, so far), and I have high hopes. Also grabbed a Ronaldo because A) I'm a fan of both soccer stars (clearly this is named after the current Portuguese baller) and B) it sounded like it had interesting potential. Can't wait to crack 'em.

 

Had Ronaldo when it was Moloko aged on cherries. I am extremely confident you will not be disappointed.

 

Yeah his name is James Clark.

 

Like most DLDs, there were definitely ups and downs. The line to get in is just damned unreasonable. They need more gates, staff, or something. I also saw some folks enter and walk right past the voucher hand-outs, which weren't well marked, and then turn around and ask for vouchers, only to be told that if they had walked past initially, they couldn't have their vouchers. I assume that's to prevent fraud, but that was pretty crappy.

Other things were great. I met tons of really generous people sharing amazing stuff, which is a happy constant of DLD. The actually Dark Lord line was so ridiculously efficient I could not believe it. It was a great move taking cash out of that process, and not having to wait for scratch-off tickets really seems to help.

Like a lot of others, I only used about half of my tickets, due to food lines being prohibitively long and thinking it a better use of my limited beer consumption opportunities on the bottle share, though I did have BA Behemoth and Muerte.

The bathroom situation was the best I've seen at DLD. Basically no waits.

I took the Beer Temple shuttle down and some folks from Surly were handing out free beers. Very cool.

All in all, the most miserable part of the day was just the weather, and there's not much FFF can do about that. It's been a rough past couple of years on that front.

Sorry to hear so many folks had beer stolen. You get so used to seeing all the generous people sharing super great beer that you forget that anywhere you go in the world, 10% of people are straight assholes. That sucks. I hope all the thieves get VD.

Got a Temeculum 3000 in Group C and am really excited to try that one day. The bourbon barrel aged DL sold out about 5 people in line before me, but now I'm kind of happy it did, because I think the T3K might be more interesting.

 

It's crazy to think that there are so many reports of stolen/almost stolen beers within the BA community. Makes ya wonder how widespread the problem is across the entire festival.

We were lucky to have some space against the soundboard rail in the south tent with several people around at most times. Still, there was a time when I was left to watch everyone's stash and it felt like a job for those 15 minutes.

 

Those are 2 entirely different beers. One is Moloko, one is Dark Lord

 

First timer. I have nothing to benchmark against, but my wife and I definitely had a great time. Food availability was really our only complaint other than weather. Luckily we brought a camelback or water and snacks to help us get through (Group E). We took a shuttle from the Residence Inn and got to the South line around 11 and waited about an hour. Met a lot of great people and shared some great beers. Weather kept me from getting to all the taps I would have liked to try and missed all the BA DL. I was able to get BA Blot and at least 3 DL pours. 100% will be back.

I haven't heard anyone talk about Legio Gemina. I don't think it was on any of the taps but knowing a little about the barrel, I think this will be a solid pick up.

 

I've heard about bags and bottles getting stolen in the past, but this year seems to be particularly bad, based on the stories here and on FB.

I'm not looking to make excuses here, but perhaps the new totes actually helped enable the theft.

In previous years most people knew to stash bottles in backpacks or run them back to cars rather than just carry them around in the cardboard holders so they didn't get broken. Now you've got everyone using a bunch of totes that all look the same, and people will be looking to set them down rather than hang on to them at all times. It would have been easy just to grab a tote and claim that it was it was yours, much more so than to run off with someone's backpack (which also happened, I know).

Thankfully, I had enough room in my backpack to squeeze the 5 DL bottles in. I kept my backpack on most of the day, and the only times I took it off, I set it between my feet. If I hadn't been able to fit them in, I probably would have ran them back to my car rather than carrying them around due to the hassle of one more thing in my hand and the risk of them getting stolen.

Overall, I still think the totes were a good idea, particularly with the weather. If it was just the cardboard holders, we probably would have seen a ton of broken bottles.

And again, there's no excuse for thieves who take advantage of other people, just a word to the wise here about securing bottles to eliminate the rest of them being stolen.

 

Yeah it was probably me if it was around 6:40. My group had just left as I was returning from the bathroom and told me the bad news, but I had to go check anyway. Thankfully, only 2 of us lost bottles so I have half an allotment full of diabeetus to look forward to.

 

Thanks to reading through this thread we were well prepared for the event. Kinda had a good idea of what we were getting into. Certainly, I'd echo the sentiments of most here; so I'll avoid being unoriginal.

My regret is that we didn't bottle share more. I think we were trying to pace ourselves for the awesome 3F and guest taps, but they just never seemed to happen or we were always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had a 2015 and 2016 DL, BA 2015 DL, BBPT5, Victory at Sea with Coconut and Bent Paddle Double Shot Double Black (which was legit). Saw the Muerte and Dwarven Power Bottom tapped but skipped on those (another mistake).

My favorite part was watching people try and navigate the slight down-slope to the bathrooms on the South side. You gotta go straight up and straight down. If you tried to walk up or down that muddy slickness diagonally you were going to bite it hard. I watched a few peoples' feet fly out from underneath them and slide tackle some poor people on the slide down the hill.

Ended up with the BADL in group C, so that's tits.

Also, the cold cut sandwich for 1 ticket was the steal of the food-show. Should have bought four of them early in the day...

 

Had my tote of bottles literally in front of me on a seat to the picnic table I was standing at and eating. This dude had the balls to reach into my bag right in front of me. Gave him a reality check, and sent him off in a different direction. But wow was I shocked to see someone so blatently try to steal.

 

I did see some guy trying to sell her tickets 5 for 20 and the dude responded with "some lady gave us her 8 tickets for free"

 

Got in the south line around 11:30 met some cool people from Michigan and shared some bcs with them.They were very thankfull. Got in about 12 or so grabbed a quanto which was very good. Line for food was about 45 minutes and some drunk lady was mooching my kbs. Managed to get ba blot out the sun. 15 ba darklord couldn't read which one it was. 16 darklord. In group d and grabbed my beer around 4. No wait what so ever. I got trump and pump my brother got quit hitting yourself. Finally got in the tent for the band's. Thank you for the people sharing huna and bitches bank. Both were really good. I ended up opening a bottles and just giving half the beer away. I was extremely drunk. Tore shit up in the pit when ehg was playing. Awesome day to say the least. Already posted how my night ended. At least my wife wasnt that pissed. Its 8:32 p.m. and I'm still hungover.