Darkness Day 2014 Thread

Looks like Firkins Oakdale is sold out.

 

I hit up three liquor stores in Prior Lake around noon and they all had it for $21-$23 with tax and all had one bottle limits.

 

A number of places in Eagan are sold out (so we can stop calling them) -

Big Top
Cellars
MGM (only selling if you are on their wait list)
Perrier (only selling to regular customers)

 

Firkins SLP now has it.

 

It does not look like all stores are getting it today. At least a few stores have been telling me tomorrow or later and got some funny faces when I mentioned a special delivery.

 

not much luck...

 

I'm not surprised some stores will get Darkness later this week. It doesn't seem geographically possible to deliver to all of the Surly accounts in the Metro today while still making normal Monday deliveries. Hopefully the truck chasers will have their stash and it won't be such a rush later in the week.

 

Four Firkins SLP is sold out.

 

Andy's in Rochester(crossroads location) got 5-6 cases about an hour ago. $25, limit 2.

 

I found it hard to believe too.

With a lot of places getting 4-5 cases, I don't think it will be too hard to get this year

 

My wife just picked me up a bottle at total wine in Roseville.

 

Seems like all the "subprime" locations like Cub got theirs midweek last year.

 

Dirty H in Excelsior has a case left $24.99!

 

Liquor Barrel in Golden Valley releasing at 4:30.

 

Zipps and Falls Liquor have it out.

 

Had luck at Whole Foods, Sorella, and North Loop in the last hour, but they all seemed to be nearing the end. Good luck!

 

Only 2 bottles left at sids

 

So with this being my first Darkness Day and my first overnight bottle allotment event, I'm not sure I knew what to expect 100%. What I did expect was a much greater degree of organization from the brewery. The line (which it will be called for the sake of clarity) wasn't really much of one. Many of the volunteers didn't really know where the end of it was, but could point to where it should be (kind of). We arrived at 11pm and were along the wall in the back. We were told we were likely around the 1200 mark. Everyone around us got bottles, but I can honestly say that the handling of how the line was condensed in the morning was a problem.

We had already taken down our things and were helping our friends at one of the larger encampments toward the front of the line (near the 400 person mark) clean up when volunteers came from the front of the line telling us to take down everything except chairs. As we started doing this, a volunteer came from the BACK of the line telling people to form up the line for wrist bands. By the time the volunteer got to where we were helping clean up, at least 200 people had walked past where we were busy packing up. We more or less just dropped everything and all got into line as quickly as possible as it seemed the volunteers could care less who was where in line as long as you were in line. We ended up waiting in line near the main intersection where everyone drove in or unloaded the night before.

Then the wristbands were given out... We were in line for nearly two hours before we got allotment wristbands around 9:30. It took thirty minutes just to get age verification bands, and then...nothing for an hour and a half. When we did get a chance to get allotment bands, they were giving out three different times all at once. This ensured that our entire group had to wait around all day in order to get our allotments.

After going back to the the half packed encampment, we asked a volunteer if we could hang out in our chairs until our allotment time. We were told, "Yes." Upon hearing this, we took down the rest of the non-chair items and proceeded to make breakfast at around 10am. Half an hour later, while finally getting some food, we are told we need to be gone immediately and that we are not going to be allowed to sit around until our allotment because the space is going to be used for event parking for the concert goers. I go to get my car and am told I can't bring it in to load up gear because parking is now only for event goers.

A little communication not only between the volunteers and participants but also amongst the volunteers would have gone a long way for this event. While there are numerous things that could be done to improve this event, I don't think it is going to happen unless Surly shells our some money as others have already said.

/WOT end

 

This is a huge pet peeve of mine. It's usually in the context of local news "next we'll see what traffic is like for your commute." Oh really? Three nights a week my commute home is after 10pm. Some people buy beer at 2pm on their way to work. Other people buy beer at 8am on their way home from work. Just sayin.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014...-the-office-the-american-workday-in-one-graph