Dark Lord Day 2016

Long time beer lover, first time poster / Long time 3 Floyds lover, first time DLD attendee

I've been to many fests before, but never a beer fest. Despite the weather, everything was pretty much par for the course that you'd see or expect at a fest. My buddies & I got to the south gate about 10:30am and waited in line for an hour, I'd say. Got to sample a lot of good beers throughout the day. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting they had DL's on tap, except when I tried to get Power Bottom which ran out 2 people ahead of me in line. Fortunately I got a couple tastes of DL from this year & prior and loved it.

My one friend & I were in Group B, got in line about 12:10pm, and finally walked out of the brewery an hour or so later. Thankfully I got my variant (Bourbon), but my one friend a- s well as the others in my group - did not get their choice (vanilla). My other friends were in Group E and pretty much walked right through.

The only issues I had was that I wish they had a better rotation / stock of the DL's on tap, another big tent (really because of the weather), and less vouchers. Out of the 5 of us, no one had less than 2-3 vouchers after. Glad that none of us had to endure the north gate, nor broken / stolen bottles. Cannot wait until next year!

So what's the consensus of how long a DLD bottle should age before it's consumed?

 

I know someone mentioned it once (or twice before), but I should say that one of the pleasant surprises for me was the DJ in the north booth. As someone who does not care for the music of the bands at all, I was a bit worried how I was going to like that atmosphere, but the north tent provided some great music to enjoy. Do they always have a DJ such as that playing music?

 

Well said, I had always been hesitant to share thinking my beers might not be worth sharing. But once I pulled out a Bitches Brew, the people in front of us were very happy. There were ample people sharing and it made the rain bearable.

The line at the North entrance was awful for all the Group A ticket holders. Until we finally got in and there was no extra line to wait for the DL pick-up. We originally saw the long line, but noticed they were Group B and walked past right up to the brewery. We got lucky and all variants were available, even scored two Vanilla Beans in the group.

 

Last year it was metal on the north side, and Big Freedia on the south (in the evening) if I remember correctly. I think there may have been a DJ on the south side before BF.

Also, why will they not re-release that beer? That shit was tasty!

 

I was in Group A and got some of the last Handjee, it didn't quite make it through Group A.

 

I heard some Big Pun "Still not a Player" while waiting in the food line and it was glorious. both the burger and the song.

 

Still wrapping my head around this.... some kind soul turned in my wallet intact. I received the call from Hollie at FFF yesterday as I was getting a new drivers license. Picked it up today. All credit cards accounted for. The $280 in cash completely there.

I am so thankful to whoever found the wallet and turned it in. Not sure if it was a FFF employee, a DLD attendee, clean-up crew, security, etc., but I wish I could personally thank him or her. FFF could not have been nicer and more helpful.

No luck on the backpack, but those beers were intended for consumption and sharing anyways. My only hope is whoever 'scored' the backpack and the nice beers inside share them with their friends and don't trade or sell them. There will always be more beer.

 

Didn't see any of those but I'm assuming it was near the north gate where they had all those truck/pour stations. I was able to get all of those from the bottle share in the morning @ the south gate except parajava, but I'm wishing I could have got BA abraxas on tap. I spent the whole time it seems walking to all the tap stations because it seemed there was no method to all the madness.

 

This is kind of a pointless question, but I'm curious:

It seems to be destiny that I'll never actually taste VBDL/Marshmallow Handjee (that name grates on my nerves for some reason), so could someone describe the taste in comparison to other BA vanilla beers? That way I can sit here at work and salivate at my screen in place of being productive.

Also, congrats @dman127 for being one of the only positive (somewhat) stories I've heard come out of the lost/stolen section of this thread!

 

Very very sweet. Good vanilla flavor. Subtle barrel/bourbon character. It's very good.

 

I think its pretty unqiue in flavor. Not many stouts are as huge. Its truly an in your face booze marshmallow. Sweet as hell though, I can easily dome a VR, but BVDL is a multi man task. IMO: BVDL>VR on draft>FO>VR from bottle

 

I found regular DL a lot, but I was constantly looking for the variants on tap. Regardless, the fact that they can't have a consistent Dark Lord offering is just absurd at this point. With all the different problems at Huna, if you wanted to camp out at the CCB station, which was fucking enormous, you could drink Huna literally all damn day. Regular Huna was on for the entire fest, could probably pull some pics. Not to mention every prior year of Huna, going back maybe five years, was on for at least half the day. Obviously other barrel and variant types were tapped and they didn't kick instantly like at DLD, with the exception of Apple Brandy, PooPoo and some others. But of course, there were at least 30 CCB taps, most of which were rare beers, and hundreds of guest taps easily searchable. Whereas this year's DLD had nothing to buffer the drive for Dark Lord variants, since there were almost zero highly desirable guest taps.

Most breweries bottle a barrel aged beer as soon as it tastes how they want it. Now some like BCBS say it develops and gets better with age, but if you want it how the brewers thought enough of it and enjoyed it enough to bottle it, go fresh, and why not, it's already been aged for you.

Same here, the number of times I browsed the barely legible chalkboards at each location is insane for me to have not seen have the rare brews others found. I guess having the Marshmallow means I'd used up all my tap karma for the day.

I'm actually going transcribe my notes into a review soon, but Marshmallow is an apt name. You don't really think that it's going to turn out that way, but my god it really does. I keep seeing people calling it really sweet, but for what it's worth IMO vanilla rounds out the flavor making it less sweet than normal DL. The aging has given it a slightly frothier texture. There isn't really much bourbon boozy heat, but the charred oak, (I'm assuming), seems to do something with the vanilla bean here that I haven't found in any other BA beer, that truly delivers that toasted marshmallow effect. Chocolatelyness of DL is still there, but more mocha like.

 

I kinda figured the same thing. By the time we got there (around 11:45) they were zipping people through pretty quickly.

 

I will agree for the most part with the above few posts regarding BVDL (especially Sabtos). I wouldn't at all compare it to VR, its a totally different beer. VR tastes way too artificial IMO and has the rye spice. Haven't had FO, so can't compare it to that. But BVDL is truly its own entity. The roasted marshmallow comparisons are on point. It is sweet, but in a very different way than standard DL (less syrup like, more marshmallow fluff like). Very subtle bourbon, more barrel than anything. Its one (adjunct) beer for me that truly lives up to the hype.

 

Less douchebaggery, more violence. Not sure that's a worthwhile trade off.

Because there will still be douchebags. Only some of them will have guns/knives/shivs/etc.

Clarifying, of course, that Dark Lord isn't barrel-aged.

 

That's fantastic. We left around 5 pm and the Uber was $132 to Michigan and Wacker, but was only $51 to get to DLD in the am. This was my 2nd DLD and enjoyed it a lot. There seemed to be more empty growlers lined up as empty bottles have always been in the lines to get in, but I saw lots of people picking up the empty growlers. I guess it's cool since they were left behind, but looked weird to see people picking up empty growlers.

 

I can 100% see why it would work as a marshmallow beer, because regular Dark Lord already has an incredibly thick/viscous feel to it that is reminiscent of melted marshmallow (texturally).

 

Ah good point, I was probably wrongly assuming he was referring to just the variants. For regular I'd say try one fresh and one each year for as many as you have...or more frequently if you want. It definitely changes over the years though.

 

How different is the Militia from the Handjee....anybody have both?

I had a sip of the handjee and was instantly smitten. Fantastic beer.

 

Only about 8-9 months until the Dark Lord Day 2017 thread starts!