Dark Lord (2018)

Verified.

Holy shit that was insane. We basically ended up having an ice cream share with far too many people, and finally one totally wrekt dude took what was left from us and ran with it.

 

Took a bottle of this year's DL over to friends last night and shared it with a handful of people who didn't go to the fest and we all thought it tasted very metallic, and just kinda off. Had it on tap at the fest and was completely different, really good. Hope they're not all like that. Fest was great, people were cool as hell, except the line cutters and people taking pictures of the poor passed out people, but I guess that's part of the deal.

 

Best Wu shirt I saw had Ric Flair’s face on it and I totally complemented the gentleman. Was that you lol

 

@azuelke

 

I didn’t see the part about charging through beer lines - that’s not cool.

 

Quite possibly me, I had numerous compliments throughout the day; ginger with a shaved head. I didn't see anyone else with one.

 

Badass shirt my man. It was around 1pm between the merch and food tent.

 

I'll second the sentiment a few posters made earlier about hoping the Floyds no longer posts tap times. I spent an hour and a half sharing with folks while waiting to inch up to get Vanilla Moloko and/or Handjee from the Gumball tent and it really limits how much you can chill with your party when you get stuck in quicksand like that. I was fortunate that everyone who I shot the shit with was cool and all, but still.

Funny thing, I had Militia on tap yesterday and opened up a 2017 last night when my party came back to the house and I definitely got undertones of soy sauce, which I've never gotten in a previous batch. On an aside, that Chemtrail was pretty nice though, with a prominent cinnamon aroma and sharpness that surprisingly worked. On the other hand, I snagged some Handjee from the last tapping of the day and got to say, that fucker is sweet. I mean, the vanilla undertones do give it a nicer complexity but I wish that vanillin that's in there could be scaled down by like 20-30%.

Either way, despite the fact I keep thinking I should give it a rest one year, I can't help but get excited when Spring rolls around again. Sucks they don't have a DLD equivalent for the Fall.

 

2 things:

1) ChemTrailMix is on tap at FFF right now. Go get it you (other) locals! I’m with the kids so I can’t. PSA for the rest of you.

2) we pulled Handjee and Rye. Happy about that. If you got Lounge or GTM and want to trade it, I’d like to have one of those!

That’s all.

 

Has anyone tried GTM? I got one and it doesn’t sound very appealing to me. Would love to trade it for Lounge, Handjee, or Chemtrailmix. Also had the FVM 18 on tap and was very pleasantly surprised.

 

Line cutters were rampant at DLD.. I thought a fight was going to break out right behind me at the 4pm Hung Drawn line. The guy trying to cut was openly acknowledging that it was a shitty move and that he was an asshole but didn't care haha.. Then eventually he left when everyone gave him shit about it.

I got Brozerker as my variant, but didn't get to try it. Can anyone speak on it?

Can't wait for next year. That was a blast and a huge success for my first one.

 

Didn't get to try it, but the minimal reviews on untappd are basically all 5's.

 

Apparently it is great, along with the Lounge. Or people are just posting 5 star reviews to boost trade value since it was one of the few that never tapped at the fest.

 

The reviews for GTM are mostly with unopen bottles and descriptions like “better than handjee!” The reviews for Macromachine look like a few people either opened bottles at the fest or that night. There was a guy in a Chicago fb group offering a handjee and two pluses for Macro with 0 interest.

 

Do you like port? If so the chance of you liking this is good. The sweetness is a good compliment to the beer. As it warms the port becomes more dominant and you get some good dark fruit notes. Shared with 3 ppl in line, 2 liked 1 did not.

Line swelling was a bit of a problem at the 4pm Handjee tapping.

Got FVM and SpaceForce.

Chatted with a lot of Chicago ppl that were so cool. There was a group of ppl from Kentucky in the 4pm Handjee that were super cool, and the 2 Nebraska guys well.

First DLD and it was an awesome experience.

 

Yeah, I’m convinced most of the people who have checked it in haven’t actually tried it. Had the 2nd lowest bottle count after Turtledogg and wasn’t on tap at the festival so trying to see if anyone has actually tried it before trading it away.

 

I tried it very early in the day, port comes through more as it warms, semi-sweet with dry finish, nice dark fruit flavors that I would assume will only become more pronounced as it ages. This one was originally in my bottom 4 of variants I didn't want, mostly because I've had very few port/wine aged stouts, but I really enjoyed it, there very well might not be a bad variant this year to be honest, all tasted great.

 

I love how people endlessly pan Temeculon and Biggleswade and then think that GTM and Lounge are going to be good. (

 

Ended the day with a couple of space forces and handjee, and space force! was my favorite on the day (I love coffee).

I had chemtrailmix as my first draft pour and... I don’t know. My palate perceived almost a tequila aspect in it. I was legitimately confused about what I was drinking.

I’m excited to try turtledogg. There is only one untappd review that looks legitimate, so I wonder how it is.

 

I thought the single barrel stuff this year was so subtle it was almost not worth calling it a variant. In years past the bourbon, muscatel, akquavit, etc. all hit your over the head with bold flavor. Maybe I just got ice cold servings from the taps this year and it stifled the barrel, but I wasn't impressed. Especially the rye- I wanted BCBS boldness.