Darkness Day 2018

Fargodome has an event that day, they kind of admitted in the twitter thread that the Treasure City was a joke, so that leaves somewhere in Wisconsin (possibly in a collaborative release???) or on a cruise, which might be the dumbest idea ever

 

I'm putting my money on them having a satellite event somewhere with the main fest still being in Brooklyn Center.

With that said, Carnival Cruises has a ship with a brand new on board brewery so I could see some type of beer themed cruise collaboration.

 

I was wondering if the international waters was a reference to the Vikings bang boat on Lake Minnetonka. I think it was Fred Smoot that made the comment about international waters in some interview, which Lake Minnetonka is no where near an international boarder or even a state line.

Either way, according to the post, we will know by Friday.

 

Somerset or something like that could make sense, especially the shanty town that gets errected. Though, not sure if I would bother with that drive just to go out there for the evening and without camping.

Also, not sure if it has changed as it has been some time, but Somerset police were not to be reckoned with back in the late 90s and 00s when it came to partying in and around the area.

 

Kind of cool that DD is going to travel to a different distro area every year.

 

Wouldn't count on that. I'm guessing it's Wisconsin since (I'm assuming here) the state law will allow them to sell bottles directly to the public. Either that or find some convenient one day work around to give the appearance of it. If the law allowed them to do this at the destination brewery they'd be going that route in a heartbeat...

...then again maybe they're moving it to drum up excitement for a new audience. I know I just bought a bottle of BA Darkness just yesterday that was sitting on the shelf.

Not sure how I feel about Darkness Day being a whole month before Halloween. The whole point of the name and release date was to build it up around Halloween. Now no one will have to brave the harsh elements overnight to prove their worth.

 

Hearing rumors that it may turn into a beer festival with entry fee, which could explain it moving to Wisconsin if that is in fact the landing spot.

Should be interesting as they release details.

 

By evening, you mean a ticketed day event?

 

Too bad, Darkness Day in Royalton would be the biggest event since they installed that stoplight-from-hell in that town.

 

Since that's when I am usually on my fall Lake of the Woods fishing trip, I strongly support an international waters event in Baudette.

Ok, I know it will never happen, It's a dream as a result of pounding down a bottle of BA Darkness at the Baudette Motel.

 

Royalton, the home of Jim Langer and the St.Cloud Superman.

 

It will be interesting to see what kind of an event Surly is planning. If it is a beer festival, I could see it being similar to the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Fest where Surly invites breweries from across the country that may not normally be found in MN/WI. However, a big outdoor fall beer festival only 2 weeks after ABR may not make the MN Brewers Guild too happy.

Therefore, I predict a heavy metal concert/event in WI for 2018 Darkness Day. That would be an easy event to skip for me due to the music, distance, and the fact that you can buy as many bottles of regular or BA Darkness as you want to now at your neighborhood liquor store without waiting in lines or rushing to buy.

 

It will be interesting if Surly learns any lessons from Darkness bottles turning into shelf turds and rethinks their platform for this beer. IMHO Darkness should be a 12 or 16 oz packaged in 4 packs with regular availability and BA Darkness should be the large format special release. I've noticed all of their large format stuff just sitting on shelves all around town, I hope they learn from this and adjust their approach. They still make good beer, most of which is available at the brewery, but are otherwise being outpaced my several newer places around town.

 

No cans. Small bottles = ok. Rarely like a canned stout.

 

Sure, bottles are generally better for long term aging than cans, but we have seen more and more stouts in cans lately. But the point of my comment was packaging size, not material.

 

This might be the dumbest Twitter "tease" I've ever seen. But on the other hand, we're all talking about Surly, so it seems to have succeeded.

Take away the epic bottle shares & sub it in with an expensive festival...it would at least be interesting to see what kind of reaction that would garner. Personally, unless Surly brings in some true heavy-hitters from our of state, or does something interesting with Darkness variants, I can't see myself traveling to another state for D-Day.