*edit*
Surly is reporting that Darkness is hitting bars this week, and liquor stores in bottles the week of Nov 2. They also noted that “because delivery dates are so varied to liquor stores, they are not going to post a list of stores that are getting the beer delivered.”
While this thread is going on over at BA, I thought I’d spread the good word to MnBeer-ers. (Don’t you love to have to check two websites to check now?! Like you weren’t already….)
Besides in bottles in my basement, which fine drinking establishments will be serving Darkness over the coming weeks?
On tap now:
- Cafe Twenty-Eight
- Hell’s Kitchen Mpls (3 kegs!)
- Bulldog NE and Lowertown
- Blue Nile
- The Happy Gnome
- Groveland Tap
Coming up:
- Busters on 28th this Friday
- Pracna on Main on Halloween
- The Blue Door Pub on Winter Solstice
- Village Pub in St. Anthony, Nov. 11th
- And at those release parties coming up too (with a shout out to our friends in SD and Chicago).
We’ll do our best to keep adding to the list as they come in. Liquor stores, feel free to chime in as you learn your fate.
Do we know when those small amount of bottles will hit stores?
The week of Nov 2nd it seems.
I saw this weekend that they start pouring darkness tonight at Common Roots in Uptown
It’s on at the Blue Nile!
cheers,
al
Darkness was at the Happy Gnome tonight!
Best Darkness YET!!!
Does the Darkness recipe change year to year?
Common Roots says their key is 2/3 gone.
OK, people, here’s a question for you.
I was looking at one of those beer ranking sites the other day, their top 100 beers. A vast majority of the top 20 beers were all Russian imperial stouts.
Why is that? Why no pils or bitter or even an IPA? Why should one style get so highly ranked?
This argues to me that people really don’t know how to compare a huge beer against a small beer and that they often mistakenly over value big beers just because they are big and/or rare.
Before Duke gets his split-crotch panties in a bundle, this is NOT AN ATTACK on any brewery. It is a question on the legitimacy of beer ranking sites and the obvious skew to big beers.
beerfan – I know I said before that I wouldn’t respond to your posts but I couldn’t agree more with you.
Oh, and please stop putting images of Duke in any perverse situation in my head. Think of the children!!
beerfan, I was chatting w/ Todd @ Surly recently and he did share that they used a different yeast in Darkness this year and different/more hops. From that, I’d infer that it changes each year as it certainly changed from 2008.
I think another big question is how legit are the rankings when so many of them are hard/impossible to find? I tried Darkness for the first time this month and when I spoke glowingly about it, a friend asked if I had a new favorite beer or if Furious was still #1.
I told him that availability has to come into play when picking your favorite beers because it’s pointless to pick Darkness and Dark Lord as your two favorite beers because you’ll rarely get to enjoy them. So Furious is still my #1 because I can enjoy as much of it as I want, whenever I want and don’t have to wait in line or pay $18 for a can of it.
This isn’t a rip on any brewery, any website or any person but it does get frustrating when you try to use a list to help you find good beers to drink but have no luck being able to actually find them.
That being said, after drinking a glass of Darkness at Darkness Day I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it wasn’t all hype, it really is the schiznit. I’m not sure that it’s worth $108 for a six pack (of bombers) but if I decide it isn’t after drinking a bottle or two at least I know there are plenty of people who would take it off my hands for me.
I’m curious…how well does Darkness age? I’ve only had it fresh.
Imperial Stouts are supposed to age very well — the high ABV and relatively low carbination make it long-term storable, and the flavors are supposed to get deeper and more complex with age.
Darkness 09 is definitely built to age well. It’s much (much) hoppier than ’08 — there’s barely a hint of the maligned ’08 sweetness. I’m guessing the sweetness is in there and will emerge, in a more balanced way, once the hops start to mellow.
IMO Darkness ’08 was (near life-alerteringly) perfect when I first had it a year ago — but when I last had it again in July, the up-front hops had died back a bit ad I could see where the too-sweet complaints came from.
My first impression of 09 was that it might be too hoppy (relatively). I’m guessing it’ll be crazy good in a few months, and even better after that.
I hear the max shelflife for RIS is 10-12 years, at least until they start going downhill flavorwise. Does that sound about right? If only there was some source of instant information I could utilize…
the above is no diss on either Darkness, BTW. I’ve had several of the commonly-available RIS (not Dark Lord) and nothing I’ve tasted remotely touches it for complexity and, oddly, enjoyability/drinkability.
I had the ’09 last night at the Gnome and I found it much more enjoyable than the ’08, which for my palate was too sweet. I didn’t think it was too hoppy at all. The ’09 nose didn’t seem as wonderful & complex as I recall the ’08, but I’ve got a bit of a stuffy nose so that may not be accurate.
Anyway, I think the ’09 as more aging potential than the sweet ’08.
This years version is definitely more hoppy, you can tell there is a bigger bite on the back of the tongue! Their website also mentions they added more hops this year.
All gone at Common Roots now.
The Village Pub in St. Anthony Will be tapping there keg of Darkness on Wed Nov 11th at 7pm
I’m pretty sure I was accross the street from the Village pub when I saw a keg with black stripes on it and a small box(maybe darkness glasses) get dropped off at the village pub last week. Was this the darkness keg?
Either way I’m glad this stuff will make it to the area! This years darkness is TASTY
Darkness got tapped on Friday at the Muddy Pig.
It’s all gone at Happy Gnome.
The keg you saw steve was just a rush river unforgiven and some pilsner glassware….the surly darkness keg will be arriving today and getting tapped this upcoming wednesday, November 11th at 7 pm
On top of this, we will be hosting a Surly beer dinner on Saturday, December 5th.
This is a $40 all inclusive 4 course dinner with the food prepared by our head chef, Greg Masilko
more details on exact beer and food courses will be available next week sometime.
To sign up or for questions call The Village Pub at 612-788-9680 or drop me an email at matt.vice57@gmail.com