Dark Lord Day (2023)

LONG rundown. Just got back to Ohio.

Wife and I made it 8:30 am to 8:30 pm...her first and I was impressed. She drove so was sober for the second half. Parked where the fireman were, best $20 I spent all day. Key for me was taking breaks to see bands and hydrate...did miss a few big beers but oh well I survived.

Bag "check" lol. I had about double the 72 oz. Barely a glance. But I had friends bring in knives to open bottles, the whole thing was pointless.

Vintage variant tent was great. Tipped the girl to give me a '20 hanjee and chemtrail in my "blind grab bag"... this was towards the end they did not give 2 shits.

Grabbing bottles, we asked the guy pick us 2 good bags, he looked in a few and found us both hanjee. We also pulled Rrari and Sundae. Traded a Rrari for a Raspberry. All in all happy with that.

Wheel of death my wife and I got free spins at the end of the night. Our friend paid the $25, we waited with her, when it was her turn, we just also took a turn and won bottles (18 reg, 20 militia). Don't feel bad we scammed them with all the money we spent/tipped. The volunteers were not giving a shit by this point.

Share tent was not packed like previous years but still fun.

Port o Potties were clean, that was great.

Went to Windmill on Friday, they were weird. I'm 51 and got carded. Asked to open my '19 stout 40 hulking giants. They said no way...said the beer police would be watching. I mean charge me a bottle fee. Or is that not a thing out there? I've liked it in the past, after Friday probably would not go back, and not because of the bottle. I shrugged that off, just a weird vibe there.

DOC's on Friday was awesome. Food amazing and 3F's with all kinds of free crap. Hats glasses and stickers. and pours of 4 whiskeys for free.

Seemed like a LOT of people didn't bring any beer and I saw people happy to get pours of Pride and Joy. lol

 

Sorry, that pours, not pouts, as in eel pout, those slimy bastards. But if there was an official fish of Dark Lord Day, eel pout would be fitting.

 

Well, that was a pretty good time. Lots of fun people around our table, including a lot of BAs I've met before, and some new ones I was meeting for the first time. Thanks for all the great beers everyone. Just tons of generosity from everyone in our orbit yesterday.

Pulled Naturally, Raspberry, and Sundae. Swapped the Raspberry for a Chemtrail.

Grabbed an Art History Czech Pils from the guest drafts pretty late during Cannibal Corpse. What a great beer. Went back for some more a little later and it had been replaced with some pastry stout. Went wandering for some High Speed Steel instead and most stuff was shut down. Bought some fried pickles and vegetables instead. They were delicious, but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

The wife was able to join the decade plus club this year which was cool. Overall the event was pretty well ran, though we only stayed for three hours or so in the morning, but we tried to make the most of it. Thought the variants were generally pretty tasty and I was also one of those surprised at just how easy it was to go up for variant pours. It also seemed like Cocomungo was basically everywhere. The guest taps seemed decent. I didn’t recognize anything super rare or unusual. Had a pour of a Burial IPA which was pretty good.

As others have commented I did notice the small crowd size and I don’t necessarily dislike it. It feels like you have more room to sprawl out and enjoy if you have a bigger party. That being said, I think some more tables would be helpful, since I don’t recall offhand that camping chairs aren’t allowed in anymore. I imagine they are since I haven’t been seeing any the last few years.

Honestly, I think I’m hard-pressed to find something to really go after with The Floyds this time around, unless I wanted to go down the whole thought of the event is too polished or too formal or something like that. But even then, with Three Floyds the size they are, I think the days of the feel of a big ass family reunion with picnic tables in the parking lot to the brewpub are never coming back and that’s totally fine. It was a special time but we keep progressing forward and I think overall Three Floyds has made generally positive steps forward.

 

Had a great time yesterday and great meeting some of you in person! Agree with the comments thus far - walked right in to get bottles in Group D, never waited more than a couple minutes for beer or food (Wheel of Death and FFF merch lines were the longest I saw). I definitely don't miss the lines or having to show up early to pick your variant.

 

I’m quite curious as to why there is so much War Pigs merch on the FFF site as well as at the kiosk. Anyone hear anything new in regards to the rumors of the brewpub reopening? I wouldn’t be surprised if they reopen the old brewpub space as WarPigs and the the Distillery as the FFF beer and liquor spot.

 

I didn’t see anyone sitting/crashing along the white fences this year which was eerily sterile. Maybe San Francisco should hire Nick Floyd to clean up their streets.

 

The brewpub will reopen eventually. That is why they moved the merchandise over to the distillery. They have a begun work on tearing down the old kitchen already.

 

You were the dude in the hairy nude print shirt & shorts and sparkly Crocs, weren't you?

 

It was on relatively early in the day, maybe 10:30-11AM. I wanted to get it also but was too hyped up for all the variants so I thought I'd come back a little later for it, but by then it was gone. Never did see Hill Farmstead or Side Project though.

 

They didn’t do a good job with the guest taps. That’s truly the only complaint I have with the whole thing.

 

Nope I was only wearing a farmer tan and a Gumballhead thong…backwards

 

There was a Cloudburst IPA on at the guest tent sometime between ~2:30 and 3:30.

Love the fact that I really wanted a Benthic as it has been a minute but wasn’t able to get one because there were so many other beers on tap I wanted to try more like Half acres Before Land Shook which was phenomenal. Between FFF, HA and Rev (and maybe GI for emphasis) Chicagoland is pretty well covered for quality BA stouts.

Did anyone try the Seven Islands stout? Was curious about that one.

 

Someone up thread mentioned they purchased Side Project. Here is a photo ripped from UT.

 

Still waiting on a report for Deluxe- what rare stuff was on?!

 

That was me that mentioned it- literally walked up to see what they had and was the second in line when they wiped the board to write Side Project. There was a minor crowd heart attack when the first letter was then B and though it was not followed by “BT”, we were all still thrilled. I think it lasted 5-10 min, every register was ringing them up until it was gone.

 

A partial list here (also ripped from UT).

 

I never saw Hill Farmstead. I did get a pour of Bubble Wrap around 1pm. Me and my group were shocked as to how there was no line no wait to get a pour.