Dark Lord Day (2023)

No middle fingers?

Also, you going this year?

 

No, kids sports have taken control of my life

 

Yeah, that's coming for me real soon and is the reason 2 friends that went with me in '19 can't go this year.

 

Ya’ll need to negotiate Familial Responsibility Vacation Days…”Honey, kids, Dad’s taking a personal day tomorrow and won’t be available for any family issues. I’ll be back at the house tomorrow and will return any calls or texts at my earliest convenience. Please contact Mom for any emergencies or urgent matters”

 

My life has pinnacled as @HouseofWortship is giving me parenting advice.

 

He's got a point. I have 3 kids myself. Sometimes you just need some time for yourself. I feel like using your kids is just an excuse for not doing or going to something you don't want to do. I do it all the time.

 

The downside is when you get away for a day without your kids you start to feel like you have a life again and you may just get the urge to flee the country and family responsibility for good.

 

Eh. Sure. It may just mean coaching my kids is more important than day drinking.

 

In this busy world sometimes you just have to combine your hobbies like coaching your kids to day drink....

 

Here's some solid "heard it from a guy" information for y'all. My better half works for a place here locally that will be one of the food vendors at Dark Lord Day. In the process of getting their inclusion in the festivities approved and the logistics worked out, they were told that the event is ticketed for 12,000 attendees.

Hey, it's a number.

 

There was a countdown clock on the ticketing site, but it's gone now. It's a smart move - it doesn't sell out initially, they take the tickets down, regret and FOMO sets in, and all the wafflers jump on them when they go back on sale.

 

I took my son to DLD in 2019. He did not need any coaching.

 

They have been phoning it in man. They tried to make Yum Yum a thing and that was the last time they got daring. I guess a better way to say it is resting on their laurels? Their beer doesn’t suddenly suck, and I still buy it all the time, but they used to have an adventurous streak, trying new things, random one offs. Now it’s variety packs. Neat.

 

Do you have an example of something "adventurous" they've done that you actually enjoyed enough to buy more than a taste, single can or bottle, or pack of? Breweries can only do so much stupid, undrinkable shit before they decide what's best for their workforce. Do some breweries need to constantly brew infinite "varieties" of hop combinations to keep their patrons buying cans of slightly renamed NEIPA, sure. I don't envy that vicious cycle.

The days of Dogfish Head, Three Floyds, Southern Tier, Ballast Point, Stone, Weyerbacher or Flying Dog brewing completely off the wall flavors and goofy non-styles are over. And which of those are still around and brewing beer worth drinking regularly at home? There were aspects of the craft beer renaissance that were fun, but most of them can stay in the past where it belongs.

I'm also sure not having a brewpub to pour drafts of experimental "Not Normal" junk doesn't help. There's plenty of local breweries everywhere still doing plenty of experimentation, most of which they almost never package because it's almost always one and done taster type shit that no one really wants to take away any volume of at all.

The new stuff FFF has done the past couple years has been solid to excellent. If it being distributed and swiftly moving off shelves is phoning it in or resting on their laurels to you, that just doesn't square to my sense of any of those sentiments. Reducing their output to just Zombie Dust and Alpha King before slowly relenting to sell out to Constellation or some shit would be a little closer to those sentiments, for me.

 

Maybe you’re new to Floyd’s, but I used to pay $35 for a growler of panzer wolf when it was a one off. Zombie dust was a one off named…I dunno I can’t remember the original name anymore.

Anyway you’re arguing that they’re in mass production mode and so am I. So I dunno why you’re pretending to have a different opinion than me…

 

Cenotaph.

 

Not only am I new to FFF, I'm new to craft beer. In fact, I'm currently cleaning the placenta off my still attached umbilical cord.

Okay, so, a growler of Arctic Panzer Wolf is what you consider adventurous (or is it the feeling of being *FIRST!*?). And "mass producing" is phoning it in or resting on one's laurels. Got it. However, I'm not sure how you could possibly think that we're arguing the same thing, because I couldn't disagree more wholeheartedly if I was being paid to.

This is just another reminder that they haven't had a brewpub for three years now, so small batch draft variants probably aren't any sort of priority for the brewers in production today. Also, though I'll be filling one at Wooly Pig today, I usually fill my growlers at grocery stores, one of which had APW available on draft not too long ago. An arctic adventure!

Anyway, I didn't originally presume that it was a constant rotation of new IPA brands you were actually looking for, but now it kind of sounds like you are. Personally, I don't think shuffling through new beer titles and packaging artwork for slight variations of hop profiles or ABV is enticing or creative, and I find it kind of when condescending when breweries do this, (though I recognize it helps the bottom line). But hey, that's just me. Still, I mean if that is something you find to be exciting, then there is a neverending landscape of breweries out there doing just that, though very few of them are doing "midwest" or WC style IPAs. Those that do, like Fat Heads, also aren't really pumping out dozens of "new" or "adventurous" WCIPA each month, but are still well beloved and voraciously consumed.

 

What i meant was, at the time, panzer wolf was something new. It melted your face. I know ipas can only get so big before they become a mess. Floyd’s is great at it though. The Floydivision series was interesting with some of them bordering on great. Why’d they stop that? If you’re not pushing the boundaries and trying new things, you are comfortable. Floyd’s is comfortable.

I don’t need new things every month and I understand the benefit of a core lineup to a brewery, but their core lineup is ~20 years old. give me something new to get excited about.

 

I don't think Floyd's phoning it in, I just think you aren't hearing about or able to taste the one-off beers that they are making? They've made several small batch beers on their pilot system (Twin Cobra, that big DIPA of their's you rightfully crave), Slapasaurus (another IPA), Operation: Box Breakdown (coconut porter), to name a few, all of which they've made available for sale in the kiosk only, for the most part, but on occasion you'll see them pop up on the tap list at Whole Foods in Schererville.

Hopefully, they'll open up the brewpub in time for it to burn down just before DLD.