Dark Lord Day (2023)

Despite lines being kinda non-existent, it is noticeably less in attendance and kind of a bummer.

 

Kind of bummed about the guest tent. They didn’t tap several guest taps, and during Cannibal Corpse has 6 of their own beers on.

 

Outside of the shitty screaming songs it was a great festival.

 

Sybris was a welcome relief.

Anyone have the report on the Deluxe package? What extras did you get and what did the taps look like in that area?

 

Pelican was solid, but needed to play longer.

 

Fantastic time just the typical pain in the ass to get there and back. Got a Side Project Bubble Wrap pour as soon as I made my way to the guest taps so that was special. Seemed very cliquish to some extent with the share tent, less open camaraderie and stranger sharing than past years though eventually our group joined a crew that was very generous with their Side Project and Cantillion, who had not had the Bottle Logics and DB minutiae I brought.

Crazy that there were zero lines to get any of the variants, no line for bottle pickup. Happy with my pulls- double handjees and a rrari (despite the promises of no doubles, which seemed to be a common theme), though I readily found someone who traded me one of their double Sundaes for a handjee in the exit area. All in all, a nice nostalgic return and hey, it wasn’t 45 and sleeting for the entire time so I can’t complain too much!

 

Overall a really great time! Happy to have finally crossed it off the bucket list.

 

Wish I could have made it - hopefully some of y’all had antics. I drank a 2018 dark lord with neighbors tonight, and they were all very confused.

 

fwiw according to this NWI Times article from today, there were 'more than 7,500 people' which is about a 40-50% decrease in attendance from 2019's estimate of 13-15k. But complaining about no lines? C'mon now!

 

I ended up getting a bottle from the vintage tent. By the time I went they were letting you pick what you wanted. Of course I walked away with one.

 

Had a great time and like others said, attendance was noticeably lower than last time. Didn't wait in line for a beer the whole day, which was crazy. Definitely not complaining but I'm hoping the turnout wasn't low enough to make 3F reconsider plans for future DL days. That article a couple posts up that said 7,500 seems right based on what I saw yesterday but I'm a shitty judge of that stuff so who knows.

 

I was also surprised they didn’t have any High Lord Fixer (HLF) readily available on draft (at least I didn’t see it anywhere) or that they didn’t have a batch of the really good NEIPA they made on their pilot system towards the end of 2022. Guess I’m stuck buying the variety pack to try HLF.

 

Was a much different vibe yesterday compared with the first one I went to 12 years ago. More subdued and relaxed certainly. The craft beer scene definitely seems to be changing/aging. Will be interesting to see how breweries adapt going forward. The younger generation of kids seem to be much more into drinking seltzer’s and eating gummy‘s than drinking craft beer. Also wild to see the trade forum have little to no activity searching out the barrel aged dark lord’s compared with a decade ago.

 

TL;DR - loved the event, and will definitely go back next year.
-----------

My wife and I had a great time yesterday at DLD. Loved the no lines for any variant and it was great to hang out with some of the fine Beer Advocate folks whom I haven't met previously or haven't seen in years, either since last fest or since I was more into trading. You know who you are and thank you for awesome pours! Definitely looking forward to the fest next year.

Between my wife and I, we got all 6 bottle variants from the two allotments, which was great. I most desperately wanted to try Naturally Upset but I never saw that one on draft (we left around 5PM) so it's good to have one in the bag. As for draft variants, I tried a few different ones and here are my rankings:

Top tier:
1. Sundea Thunderstorm ('23 variant) - ordered this one twice. I loved the chocolate and I got the 'ice cream' out of it for sure. Not the type of variant I'd gravitate to usually but I really liked it.
2. Chemtrailmix '18 - this one is holding up well. Nice subtle cinnamon and peppercorn that compliment the barrel aged base.
3. Marshmallow Handjee '23 - I thought this was the best Handjee of the last 3-4 years and I certainly liked it more than last year's variant. Good bit of vanilla.
4. Keyrock '20 - can't go wrong with straight up ryeBADL.
5. Rrari Crochet '20 - I like fruited stouts when done well and this was one of them.
6. Hellaboozie '20 - another good one like Keyrock.
7. Raspberry Diamonds '23 - Loved the bourbon soak and chocolate covered berries flavor in this one.
... The seven above for me were all very enjoyable to drink and I'd have been happy to drink any of them multiple times.

The two below...
8. Loadstar '19 - there was no coconut here. You could tell this was past its prime, even though it was still enjoyable because it tasted like a BADL.
9. Chemtrailmix '23 - my least enjoyable one of the day, and I actually could only muster 4-5 sips. Just way too much cinnamon spice and pepper. Fun to try but I wouldn't get this one again. Probably going to look to trade this one for one of the other five.

Based on the Untappd ratings, it sounds like I'm in the minority when it comes to Chemtrailmix '23 and Sundea Thunderstorm.

The only 'dings' one the event I'd say is, the food lines were very long (even though we passed the time nicely enough by just getting more zero-waiting DL variants) and the guest taps weren't overly enticing. I wanted to try the Cloud Burst West Coast DIPA but I missed out by the time I made my way back, and I never really saw anything else I wanted to try over the DL varitants.

How was the Deluxe tent?

 

Huh, regular Dark Lord is a 750ml now. Much tougher chug.

 

Only complaint is the bags seemed mixed on time in the line rather than randomly generated. My group of 3 all pulled Handjee, Rrari, and Thunderstorm. My cousins group of 3 all pulled CTM, Naturally, and Rrari.

If they'd have checked their bags before putting them in the car they'd have gotten a Handjee. Instead, we quickly horse traded at the pickup exit for a full 6. Not hard when you've got extra Handjees to give I suppose.

Everything was pretty fantastic and well organized compared to years past. Great event. Didn't mind the smaller crowd but as others mentioned I hope it doesn't deter 3Fs from continuing the event.

 

Agree with above, great fest, super chill, easy to get pouts, guest taps too few and not that great.

But, I’m thinking the smaller crowd was anticipated/planned. Total bottle counts add up to 18,000, so with 3/per, only 6000 allotments available. Unless I’m missing something, like a variant with multiple bottle totals/batches.

Sundae 4800
Rrari 4100
Handjee 2750
Chem 2750
Upset 2000
Raspberry 1600