Recap Dark Lord Day 2009

There are few things in this world that justify driving 14 hours from South Carolina to an industrial park in Munster, Ind., then stand in line for four more hours. Yes, it really happened, and the reason is Three Floyds Brewing Co.’s Dark Lord beer—released on Saturday, and only Saturday, at the brewery. The event has become an annual affair; Chicago bands make the trek to play, while beer aficionados from across the country wait for a taste of the sweet nectar. If people from Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa, Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina all got up at the butt-crack of dawn to stand in line and drink beer while waiting to buy beer, it must be good, right? The A.V. Club knew there was only one way to find out.

9:44 a.m. Knowing there was a press pass waiting for us, we get a slow start. Doughnuts and an almond flakie from Dinkel’s Bakery provide the caloric and emotional fuel to tackle both the Dan Ryan and the Bishop Ford.

10:21 a.m. The smell of paper pulp, moist and fragrant, wafts into the car as we merge onto 80/94. Indiana must be near.

10:32 a.m. Horrid traffic backed up through two signals on Calumet Avenue, the main drag through Munster. There’s no way this can all be people angling for Dark Lord. Oh, turns out about half of them are.

10:34 a.m. We cruise for a parking space, jockeying with big-rig trailers and flocks of people dragging massive wheeled coolers behind them.

10:39 a.m. Munster’s finest has a definite presence, keeping an eye on the crowd—The A.V. Club later estimates that about 1,500 people are in the line, which stretches down the street and spirals around a parking lot. They all have an open beer in hand. This is clearly a parallel universe where public consumption is encouraged.

10:47 a.m. The A.V. Club tracks down Lincoln Anderson, the brainchild behind much of Dark Lord Day. He’s inside the brewery, giving a final briefing to some of the workers manning the guest taps. He explains how the Dark Lord phenomenon took off: “When we started making Dark Lord Imperial Stout, people started calling and asking when it would be released,” he says. The first few years, it was 50 or 100 people showing up at the brewery on release day. The numbers swelled and Anderson figured, “Why not make a party out of it and have a good time?” Uh, sure, why not?

10:56 a.m. The crowd is getting restless. Kevin and Julie Martel and Joel Propst and his wife, all from Myrtle Beach, S.C., got here at 7 a.m. after a 14-hour drive. Kevin says “good beer, great atmosphere,” is all the reason he needs to make the trek.

10:58 a.m. Inside the brewery, about 15 stations are set up, with 5-foot stacks of Dark Lord cases behind them and hundreds more cases on pallets nearby. The bottles sell for $15 each, but to buy them, everyone in line had to purchase tickets online last month. Each ticket was $10 and would get you up to four bottles. If you wanted the maximum, eight bottles, you’d be spending $140, or $17.50 for each 22-ounce bottle.

Peter Sachs

11:02 a.m. The rush to buy Dark Lord begins—well, more of a calm trickle, as workers must check the ID of each person who enters. Jeff Greenbaum, of Lake Villa, left his house at 4 a.m. to get in the front of the line and be the first person to buy Dark Lord. He takes his time, chatting up the workers and showing off some of his tattoos.

11:10 a.m. The A.V. Club starts cruising the line, which hasn’t really moved—many people have been drinking for a couple of hours while lounging in beach chairs. It is, in short, a really buzzed and relaxed mob scene.

11:11 a.m. There is a small purgatory of inferior domestic beers clustered on the pavement far from the line. Yes, there’s a Natty Ice in the collection. Shame.

11:21 a.m. Clint Wadsworth, of Valparaiso, stands out toward the back of the line wearing a yellow beer helmet. But instead of Old Style, he has it equipped with a can of Ten Fidy Imperial Stout and a can of Dale’s Pale Ale. A hands-free black-and-tan. “I’m trying to pace myself,” he says. “Just getting really drunk, not extraordinarily drunk.”

11:25 a.m. Finally, there's the end. The line spirals twice around a parking lot at the end of a cul-de-sac. Most people in line have tickets, which guarantees they’ll get to buy Dark Lord. And those big wheeled coolers? Many people brought the best beers from their personal collections to trade for other rare craft beers. Among the offerings: limited releases from Flossmoor Station, New Glarus, Dark Horse Deschutes Brewery, and countless other small brewers.

Peter Sachs

11:28 a.m. The back of the line finally starts moving slowly forward, accompanied by the sounds of plastic coolers and aluminum chairs dragged on asphalt.

11:39 a.m. In the rush to move up in line, a man drops a beer he’s trying to open, and he's forced to gulp it down as it froths all over the pavement. Boos erupt.

11:42 a.m. Hundreds of people issue vocal groans as a man in an orange shirt drops his glass goblet, shattering incredibly loudly on the ground. One person yells, “Cut off!” The man sweeps the shards under his rolling cooler with his foot and then drags the cooler to move up in line, exposing the chunks of glass again. Smooth move.

11:46 a.m. The A.V. Club procures samples of Dark Lord, spends several minutes inspecting and sniffing it before taking a sip. This is tasty stuff, and the dark, opaque beer is surprisingly mild. You'd expect strong coffee and tobacco flavors, as many imperial stouts have, but instead this one's more like caramel apples on steroids. Delicious, but worth a 14-hour drive? For much less effort, Armanetti’s in Lakeview has Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout. (In fairness, Goose Island’s offering is aged in bourbon barrels before bottling, while the bottled version of Dark Lord is not. Barrel-aging gives beers a much more complex flavor profile.)

12:01 p.m. There’s a low-key crush at the guest taps, which are set up in one corner of the brewery floor. Stone’s brandy-aged Double Bastard is about to get tapped. Each hour, the crew switches the guest taps, meaning that more than two dozen rare brews will be up for drinking—at $5 a pour—over the course of the day. The A.V. Club opts for Dogfish Head’s Palo Santo Maron, our favorite at November’s Festival of Wood- and Barrel-Aged Beer. It’s heaven in a glass. We savor it with a pulled-pork sandwich and a mustard-seed bratwurst with pickled cabbage.

12:25 p.m. While eating said barbecue delights, it's confirmed that, yes, the guy taking the money at the food table is the regular bouncer at the Holiday Club.

1:08 p.m. We snag Anderson in between beer crises (something about obnoxious drunks outside, who’d have guessed?), and he leads The A.V. Club in the back door of the brewpub. Bouncers out front only let people in when someone leaves, so there’s no jostling at the bar and no overcrowded tables. “This is like the eye of the hurricane,” Anderson says, as he procures a taste of the vanilla bean oak-aged Dark Lord, only available on tap at the brewpub.

1:10 p.m. The A.V. Club double-fists the Popskull and the vanilla bean oak-aged Dark Lord. It is an incomparable combination. The vanilla scent and flavor of the aged Dark Lord are unmistakable at first, but soon give way to a much more nuanced, complex and smooth imperial stout with a ridiculous aftertaste that lingers for several minutes. Now this is definitely worth the drive.

Peter Sachs