2016 Surly Darkness

Yes I wasnt so wrong glad they moved up the date every day longer it gets colder in October!

 

Cold in Minnesota... In October!? Good Gawd.

 

Never been to Darkness Day, is it true that I may need a tent (which I don't have)? Would I be better off risking it by risking finding one at the stores?

 

Don't worry about getting bottles of darkness which you will get either way. Just go and have an awesome time drinking great beer and hanging out with awesome people. You won't regret it.

 

I plan on going to Darkness Day this year for the first time. How far in advance do tickets go on sale? How does allotments and purchasing bottles usually work? Bottle sharing allowed?

 

D-Day has never been a ticketed event (to this point). Allotments last year were six bottles of Darkness & one bottle of barrel-aged Darkness. The six bottle allotment has been pretty steady most years. Bottle sharing is not allowed - it's wildly encouraged. There will be a tent city with a minimum of 600 to 1,000 people, depending on the weather, who will be going strong well into the night. Unless you get into things too early, then a 9PM bedtime is a definite possibility.

 

Ok cool I figured it would be ran somewhat similar to DLD. Looks like I can book a flight out then and have everything planned. So bottle sharing isn't allowed but it happens anyway?

 

He's saying it's not just allowed, it's wildly encouraged

Make sure you don't have too much fun the night before and sleep through/be hungover through them handing out wristbands in the AM

 

And still haven't heard a good reason that cult-status non-BA Darkness isn't year round, or at least increased availability. Seems like they are artificially limiting a high-demand beer. Maybe I am overlooking a key ingredient that justifies the limited availability, something like unicorn hair?

 

It's the Sinamar, that makes it so sought-after ;-)

 

It's a delicious beer, but it wouldn't look good sitting on a shelf for almost $1 an ounce when you can find Ten Fidy, Narwhal, Old Rasputin, etc. for much cheaper. They definitely want to keep it limited and sought-after.

 

Don't really see why they need to justify the limited availability. Maybe they like having an annual event. Maybe they don't want to spend hours and hours getting volunteers or hiring more people to dip tens of thousands of bottles by hand. Maybe they need to keep space open in their tanks for other beers. Lots of reasons could be why it's only once a year.

 

Not sure why you're bringing the cynicism hard - you could say this about any annual release. However, in 2014, pre-expansion, Surly took Darkness out of the tanks & threw it all in barrels to free up tank space for their regular lineup, which they didn't want to have shortages of during the time it took to produce Darkness. So if it takes more time, more materials, & by definition more expense to brew Darkness, they may simply not have the capacity currently to produce a jillion bottles every year.

Besides that, all the free advertising they get with local TV covering D-Day every year sure is valuable to the brand.

 

I would definitely bring a tent, or something to sleep in. The people passed out in a wobbly fold out chair always look miserable to me.

 

Thank the lawd on the date change. Had a buddies wedding scheduled on the 30th and showing up with a darkness day level hangover wouldn't have been a good look.

DLD and Darkness Day are fairly different in that Darkness Day sharing takes place the day before the event and Dark Lord Day primarily takes place on the day of the event and goes into the evening. For DLD you have to get a hotel room for Friday night then get up early and drink all day Saturday. For Darkness Day you sleep outside (or in a tent, or in the back of a car) on Friday night and you're done Saturday by early afternoon, in my experience.

 

This same question could be asked of hundreds of breweries/beers. Why isn't Dark Lord year round? Why isn't Pliney the Elder year round? Anyone who knows a lick about the industry can see numerous benefits to having a limited release beer and the factors that make it difficult to have said limited beer always available.

 

Keep in mind guys wearing yoga pants is not encouraged at either DLD or Darkness days.

 

Before someone calls you a mean name, I will point out that surely you meant Pliny the Younger

 

Ha, too late to edit! Rage brain making me make mistakes!