Dark Lord Day 2016

This was my 1st DLD and I had a blast! My favorite part was the bottle sharing in line. I tasted so many awesome beers, and felt part of a really special community of beer-geeks.

Thank you all for the wealth of info in the lead-up to the event. It really made my day much more organized and enjoyable Will definitely think about making the trek from California again one day.

 

so close to 100!

 

How about those battle axe bottle openers?

 

Aside from the weather the only bad part was waiting over 3 hours in line to get inside and not gettin in until the group A session was technically over and not being able to pee the entire time we were in line. Thank god the staff got us routed around the group B people that were in line and straight into the brewery for our pickup. Jeers to those screaming and cussing us out as we were routed around them. They knew we were in A and still had some less than nice things to say and told us we should have showed up earlier or got in line behind them. 5th straight year and it felt like they too kind major step back in line management. Once you got into the brewery it took all of 30 seconds to get your beers and get out. They did amazing on that front.

 

We had a blast for our first DLD. Yeah the weather sucked, but what can you do. We had good boots and rain gear so we dealt with it ok. I didn’t see BA DLD on tap, but got a regular as my first pour real quickly. The gin barrel aged fierce by Off Color was my surprise favorite tap I had. Loved the Necropants! From what I heard of previous years, I was hoping for some more big beers on tap, but no biggie.

The bottle shares in line were amazing. An easy random in line trade of my Parabola 16 for a Huna 16 was a real pleasant surprise. Thanks man, cheers! My new Iowa friend, I ‘m glad you enjoyed my NG Golden Ale. So many great beers from all over. Too many to mention, wow.

Bathrooms were plentiful and by my germaphobe wife’s standards they were even clean.

Another food station would have been nice, those lines did get pretty brutal. I didn’t mind lines as the bottle sharing was fantastic, but if you really needed food in you, it was a bit tough to keep drinking.

No Vanilla, but a Bourbon barrel DL for me and my wife was great for group C.

I just need to remember next year, there is a reason I hadn’t moshed since Primus in 1991. Ouch my achy bones. Can’t wait until next year!

 

I was stuck watching the groups stash last year. These 5 ass holes tried to jack a couple 4 packs and variants, one guy was chatting me up as a decoy. This year I was the only one stressed out and didn't enjoy myself like I did in year's past. I would easily trade the half dozen variants for a 20 minutes alone in the parking lot with those guys...

 

From what I've gathered, these were some of the nice Floyds taps..

13, 14, 15, 16 Dark Lord
Vanilla bean
15 BA Dark Lord
BA Behemoth
BA Moloko with chilis
Dwarven Power Bottom
Ronaldo
Muerte
BA Big Tiddy Assassin (can anyone else confirm)?
Cognac Blot out the Sun

Anything else you guys saw?

 

Muscat BA DL
Red Wine BA DL (l'm assuming this was Quit Hitting Yourself)
Quantro TIPA

All were good but the Muerte was the best beer I had all day.

 

Then you probably saw the guy at the start of group C that found himself alone in the middle of the gates, wasto potasto drunk....poor guy.

For the Group A'ers - what time is best to get in line in the morning to get in the festival? There were a few people that were next to us in Group C that had Group A badges that looked royally pissed off....and it was because they waited in line at the north gate forever. Being group A and showing up at 10.30 and expecting to get right in seems foolish - but I'm curious what the latest time was to arrive in line and still not have to wait behind a million other folks with Group B or later

 

I'll go ahead with my experience then too.

2nd year attending, last year was my first. Got there at 8am. Went with the south gate this time and sounds like that was a good choice. Was in by around 10:20, I couldn't believe how empty it looked. Went straight to the hot sauce me and my dad both got one, no line. Then went over to the guest taps. I told myself this time I'm not waiting in lines all day for merchandise, we'll sit under a tent and drink all day. We both enjoyed the beer on tap, I do wish I would've ran into some vintage or variants of DL tho. Tap beers we tried Quaanto, BA Blot out the Sun, Dank Buster (upland), Xtra Citra, Skull Ole, 2016 DL, And my favorite Crooked Stave L Brett D Raspberry, man was that fantastic. We were group C, I was happy with Bourbon DL, and my father got his choice of De La Muerte. I was surprised Ronaldo went so fast that was going to be my go to.

Pros:
Great shares in line, always meet such generous people
DL line couldn't have went faster
Never waited to take a piss
Never waited for tap beer
Got plenty of free extra vouchers
Sweet axe bottle opener

Cons:
Food lines were long. My dad "settled" for Donerman because how short it was but really enjoyed that curry sausage.
I feel bad for the people who waited so long to get in, that's ridiculous and really started you off wrong
My dad got a comic book, got it signed, only to have it fall out of his coat sleeve as we were making our way to the car. They should've had sleeves for them or even ziploc bags. We went and bought another one but they were done signing.
The dark lord shirts with the character in the spacesuit sold out. Should've got it in the beginning but we got ours at the end last year so we followed that same approach. We were wrong lol

Will definitely try for tickets again next year. It was much more enjoyable this year with our approach to stay out of the line and settle for something else. Last year was just one big line (snifters, then getting allotment) I feel bad for the people who had to wait to get in and deal with theives that's messed up.

 

I honestly cannot believe that with all the generosity going on at DLD, theft is still such a (relatively) big issue. On the way out (4pm-ish) I heard one guy complaining that his backpack with full DL allotment + glassware had been stolen; that's ridiculous. You can literally show up to this fest, enjoy some bottle sharing and get your allotment, and that's already worth it, so it stuns me that there are people there who steal (as naive as that is).

 

I know some Group Aers that got in line at 930 and didnt get through till 12:45. I gotta assume that next year's line situation will be improved for the north side. Couldn't A people have gone through the south gate and then gotten in line that way too?

 

We could've, and that's what really burns me up. Had we gone in via the South Gate I'd have been in the DL line by like 11 or 11:30, easily getting my pick of variants. Instead, I got to the variant room at like 1 or 1:30, long past when vanilla was available.

I'm worried that next year a bunch of people will go south anticipating the issues from this year, and then we'll have a different issue.

Also, congrats on starting the 100th page of the thread!

 

While walking through the fence maze to get my allotment I seen a drunk guy walking through the maze leaning SO far back that the weight of his backpack should have taken him down. He seemed to be defying gravity, like something out of a viral video LOL!!

 

Had a great time saturday. Was first in line at the South Gate with my crew. We camped overnight. Was a lot of fun...several people joined us for beers in the evening and then again in the morning. Poured my Deviate growler of the BA RIS with BA Coffee beans to a lot of people behind me in line and it seemed to be pretty popular. Also shared a 750 of Schramms Blackberry with people in line. Everyone that I ran into in the south line was super friendly and made the experience awesome. I was able to get all 3 different mini snifters for the day, which I was pumped for!

One thing that was not awesome. My buddy and I went back to the car around 12:30 and ended up passing out for a few hours. During that time, some random dude opened the car and my buddy awoke to this guy rummaging through all of our stuff. At first my buddy didn't see the guy actually take anything....but when we woke up it was clear that he got away with my bottle of Bloobs. Should have locked the doors....lesson learned.

 

The BALLS of some of these people. I don't know if being drunk made them think they were invincible (or even invisible in many instances like this one) or what.

 

That's insane.

 

That's absolutely stunning that someone would be so brazen to rifle through a car with people inside.

 

That's just messed up... When I was leaving there was a few guys just hanging around asking what variant we had and asked if we wanted sell any of our dark lord. We didn't... I have a feeling they would probably try to steal or beat someone up for beer.

 

the large black market for this stuff brings a lot of unwarranted issues to these events that are supposed to be a celebration of beer. Like shady ticket scalpers at big sporting events who care very little about what actually goes on inside the stadium