Dark Lord (2018)

first DLD experience, had a great time. scored two bottles of french vanilla, traded one with a buddy for cavaleiro. figure we will drink them together anyways but it sounds like a lot of people got duplicates. don't think they shuffled the bottles much.

the lines though...jesus. even for merch and dark matter just nuts. most ran well except the variant tappings, you would have 3 lines merging into one. complete shitshow. ended up trying a lot of the guest taps and some vintage's, then stuck to bottle shares. as much as I wanted to try chemtrail and hanjee, i didnt want to jump into that mess.

 

Commedy gold on DLD Facebook page of the Lakeview Binnys beer associate punching a security guard and then getting arrested. Great DLD everyone. Keep coming back for the people and entertainment. Beer was good too.

 

I was first in line for 10am tapping yesterday. I thought it was delicious. lots of chocolate and nice coffee. I should say though that I thought 17 FVM was good fresh too.

 

We both got Space force, traded one for a Rye, had them both on tap and they were excellent. It was crazy that they aren’t limiting pours of variants, I got 3 of space and 3 of rye, my buddy got 6 pours of Handjee. Monster Tones on tap was awesome.

 

what's the official bottle counts for all 11 variants?

 

Spaceforce 720
Brotilla 998
Turtle 443
Chemtrail 1224
Hung 1459
Teachable 718
Brozerker 1025
Handjee 3070
Cavaleriro 1665
Fvm 1015
Lounge 865

 

And the variant or variants on draft this morning will be?

 

Thanks to @FrankenBeery the great hospitality and shares. Great meeting @Coel And @Sabtos as well.

While the draft lines were a shitshow, they clearly had tons of kegs, which was great. I waited well over an hour in a Hanjee line, but had great generous neighbors. Plus, by the time I got to the front FVM was on, so i got both.

I dug Varnov as well. The cask seemed to dry the beer up a bit.

Also scored two pours of Beer Barrel Time. Definitely a great beer, but not the best of the day. Glad I got to taste it though - never thought I'd have the chance.

Oh, and I scored my first Handjee bottle. Great consolation after vintages last year.

 

The nose on FVM was incredible - tons of roasty coffee. But it tasted a little disjointed. Not awful by any means, but a little sloppy/all over the place. A year or so of age might serve that beer well.

 

They probably weren’t limiting them because they figured most people would be respectful and appreciative that they could try the majority of the variants. They probably didn’t expect people to drink 6 at a time....way to ruin the fest next year for everyone.

 

I wouldn’t call this ruining the fest but I do think limiting pours to 1 per person per beer would make a ton of sense for limited stuff. I understand for big groups it was nice to have runners gathering beers from everywhere but when you’re only 1 of 2 you pretty much have to stay together in line and watching things sell out in front of you because people were buying 6 of things and handing them off to friends not standing in line is the definition of cutting the line to me. It was frustrating.

 

I think limiting variant draft pours to two would be ideal. And even if you have a large group with runners hitting different taps, two pours is enough to split for 8-10 people.. especially at DLD when everyone has plenty to drink and way to much at baseline.

Taking more than 2 pours is just being a dick. And is exactly what is wrong with the beer scene especially in and around Chicago.

 

Next year they gotta do something to speed up the Dark Matter line. I was in it for three hours from when I entered the grounds. It was fine, because I had nowhere else to be, and shared a lot of beers in that time. They also had plenty of stuff available by the time I got to the counter. DarkLineDay for sure.

 

Some initial thoughts:

Entrance was a breeze around noon. Pretty much walked right in. The first thing I was hit with was a line that wrapped from one side of the Gumball (I think that was the tent name) tent, all the way back to the wall of portos, along that wall, and then it curved back to where the line started for the other taps.

And that seemed to be the theme for a lot of the day regarding taps. Lines, lines, and more lines. I guess it would be nice if they had some corrals or something set up to keep some order to the lines/cut down on cutting.

That would be my only 'complaint'.

I liked the cashless approach and the bracelet worked perfect all day for me.

We navigated the Monster's Park line perfectly and grabbed a couple pours. We also hit that sweet spot where FVM and Handjee were on at the same time (Handjee stayed on a real long time). And we happened to have some friends about 10 people back that caught the kicking of Handjee and then Chemtrail Mix was put on, so we had all 3 which was a nice treat. Monster's Park and Chemtrail were the highlights of the day as far as the taps go. I thought the coffee was a bit strong and got a bit of a bitter taste. A little time will hopefully calm that down a bit.

Met some nice folks, shared some good beers and got Turtledogged. I'm a scotch drinker so this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it wouldn't have been my first choice.

At times the smell of pot made me think I was at a Phish show. Folks were being pretty casual smoking.

The buses from Green Street were cheap, easy, and on time. After a quick gyro, I was in bed by 11 which is helping me feel semi-normal today.

It all went by so quickly. Can't wait to do it again next year.

 

Unless you want the variant bottles of black hole necromancer there is absolutely no reason to wait in that line. Went to the line at 630, maybe 10 people waiting. Really stupid to waste that much time in a line.

 

Why isn’t this thread locked yet?

See you dorks next year
#igotallthevariants

 

Not my best year. My stomach was messed up in the afternoon right after I had the sausage. Because of that, I made a bigger ass of myself than my level of inebriation would have suggested. Sorry to anyone I ran into at that time.

I guess the moral of the story is don't swallow The Dark Lord's sausage.

Tap lines were a mess too. I always seemed to pick the one that never moved.

Worst part is I dropped my tote taking it out of the car this morning and lost 2 bottles (not my FVM thank god, that was in my backpack). I don't think I've ever lost a bottle of craft beer before.

 

Yeah, and what’s up with all the cigar smokers this year too. Like every line had multiple people smoking cigars. DLD really felt mainstream this year and seemed more like a fraternity bro fest than years past. It was great to see grandmothers in line talking about what variants they tried- so surreal. Flocks of tiny college girls getting trashed like they were on spring break lugging around allocation tote bags that dwarfed them.

Interested to see if FFF raises price by a buck next year to include a tip for servers or if they switch back to cash. I found it hysterical almost no one was tipping because no one had cash as it was a casheless event. Did they not see that coming?

 

That sucks about the tote. Mine ripped almost all the way across the bottom but somehow I didn’t lose any bottles.

 

We had a large group under the tent, we sent runners to all the tappings and spread the love, it was awesome getting to try 6 different variants. There seemed to be plenty going around. Can’t wait for next year!