We’ll see you all at the brewery at 4:30am, right? Yikes! Come join us in line on Saturday for Darkness at Surly! At least some of the MNBeer crew will be on hand to join in on the festivities, drink your spare beers and of course get our grubby little hands on some Darkness.
Dare I ask when you all are planning to arrive? If they start checking IDs at 9am and start selling Darkness at 2pm, what shall we do to entertain ourselves?
Tip of the day from MNBeer… dress warm! Cotton kills! SmartWool is my favorite choice for keeping your feet warm and dry in cold weather. It’s not cheap, but it’s warm, super-soft and doesn’t stink!
Good morning Surly Nation. You’ve been having fun all weekend and its time to get back to work… great job, it’s not even 9:00 and you’re thinking about beer.
D-Day (Darkness Day) commeth! This Saturday, December 15th. Since people have promised insanity, we present the following ground rules.
Surly will open the gates to the brewery at 9:00 A.M. At that point we will start checking IDs. Individuals can not “hold” places in line for others, and we will not save bottles for people. 480 bottles will be available, thus after 240 people have queued up, will we let people know that we are sold out. As soon as we know, we will change the message our phone message and this web-site.
There will be access to a restroom before 9am. We will start selling Darkness 750’s at 2:00PM. 2 bottles max per person, $15 each (plus tax). To help speed things along, we are taking CASH ONLY. The total will be $33 for 2 bottles, including tax.
If you have more than $33 burning a hole in your pocket, good news! We will have warm food available for purchase at the brewery. Uncle Frankies will be selling Hot Dogs during the day. We will also be selling growlers and merch from our regular hours of noon-2:00. Individuals waiting for Darkness will be able to purchase merchandise and growlers of Bender and Furious during that time – you won’t lose your place in line. If we are sold out of Darkness, you can still come on in and purchase growlers of Bender and Furious to get a Surly fix.
The Darkness sale will happen at a different location in the brewery than normal, so we can keep things moving quickly.
And for those who just can’t join us, there will be 6 individual bottles of Darkness sold on Ebay to raise money for EnergyCents, a Minnesota non-profit group that works to keep the lights and power on for folks that are having trouble with their utility bills. There will be a link on this page when the sale starts, December 16th.
Being that it is a Surly event, there are some surprises, and it should be fun for everybody.
One more thing… numerous people have asked when they should show up to guarantee that they get Darkness. We’ll soon be able to tell you when to get there in 2008, but 2007’s start time is anyone’s guess….
Smoke has been released and delivered to the following bars:Mill City Café, Washington Square Grill, Mad Cappers, Stub & Herbs, Pracna, Busters, Blue Nile, Café twenty-eight, Acadia, Grumpy’s NE, Muddy Pig, Happy Gnome and Mackenzies.
We will be having a cask event at Groveland Tap next week and the two release party will happen in January at the new Acadia Café. What is two you ask, it’s our second anniversary dark ale brewed with over 40 pounds of cranberries per barrel!
Omar,
See you drinking.
www.surlybrewing.com
I still can’t believe the fanboy hysteria over Surly.
It’s decent beer, but not stand-in-line good.
I am glad you dared. I am curious too. I mean, Darkness is great and I would love to get some bottles. But…. do I want to wait outside in 10 degrees for 3 (or more?) hours? Not sure. I’m sure the craft and homebrew will be flowing from person to person. It will probably be a fun time, But it will be interesting to hear from anyone who is for sure going to know what time they plan to arrive.
My guess would be if you get there 3 hours early, you will be outta luck. Omar and co. will make it well worth our time for coming out…I’ll be there miiighty early to shoot video.
You can line up at 9 am and they don’t start selling ’til 2 pm?
The projected high that day: 20 F.
What is it with this brewery that they like to make people line up in line and you fanboys just eat it up?
Like Apple it’s a great, world-class product with great, world-class design. Brand loyalty and even fandom naturally follow. It’s easy to understand that the thin part of the wedge will be waiting in the cold for this release.
Design?
I guess I evaluate the beer first and don’t care about the marketing.
It’s definitely a little ridiculous to line up at 9am (or earlier?) to buy a couple of beers, no matter how good they are. That being said, I like Surly, I love local beer and dammit, I’ll be there. 🙂 In a sense, the ridiculous factor is party of the fun.
I just want to know who is planning on showing up the earliest? I mean, really, isn’t 9am early enough? I know how these events go and how the lines start… I just can’t imagine coming much earlier.
If you don’t want to give up your precious arrival times in a public forum, e-mail me at ryan AT mnbeer.com. I don’t plan on publishing anything, but am curious as to how ridiculously early some of you might plan on arriving.
10am or so. It will be a good time regardless if I get a bottle. Besides, I know someone out there will invite me to a tasting of theirs, right? Right?
I think ridiculous is the correct word and it applies to Surly’s marketing and the lemmings who stand in line.
Just look at Autumn Beer Review and the 4-5 special releases Surly did and the huge line it created.
I think that was a cheap stunt to build buzz and attract attention.
If your beer is so good, bring enough for people to taste.
ABR special releases have gotten to be a bit ridiculous in the past few years. I’ll agree that it’s overkill. Of course Omar & co. are arguably following a path that had already been paved by other locals… for example the line/crowd for Fitger’s Cherry Batch is notably ridiculous. It’s a great beer, but the lines are nuts. I’d much rather see “special releases” be done quietly… Surly’s lines were long, as were Fitger’s and even Summit for their Oatmeal Stout with brettanomyces.
On the same note, I can’t blame them for their approach to marketing… it doesn’t cost much and has created a hell of a buzz. If I could do something like that in the local ski & snowboard market without throwing down a lot of marketing dollars, I’d be a rich man.
“Limited,” “special,” “commemorative” etc. are always going to make the collector nerds sweat. In Surly’s case, I believe there’s a lot of local “ownership” among local craft beer fans… kind of a sense that “we made them what they are,” which can only builds loyalty. Couple that with the fact that they’re making some tasty beer, and I don’t think you can go wrong…. unless you’d rather not sell beer. 😉
What a hater! You missed the point. It is not about you, it is about the folks who would line up at 9 AM to get the beer. If one believes the beer really is world class, and one is of the subset of people who follow beer(like some people follow star trek or Green Bay), then it seems perfectly reasonable to you to stand outside at 9 AM in the cold waiting for an event which will take place later in the day. It’s essentially tailgating. For these folks, I referred to them earlier as the thin end of the wedge, this is no different then lining up to buy a video game or some other highly sought after product. If it ain’t your bag, it ain’t your bag.
What’s wrong with building buzz and attracting attention anyway? It is a business first and foremost. Special tastings, and rare releases are ways you get your product noticed, since you cannot make media buys like larger outfits can. I wish I had a product as good as Surly to sell.
Hater?
No, just surly (small s) when I have to stand in line. And also immune to fashion. You mentioned design. And product, which seems to state that the cool factor has more do to with anything than the beer itself, which is for the most part good and not great, IMHO.
I could wait for 5 hours in the cold to get a $15 bottle of Darkness (maybe) or I could in 15 minutes drop by The Cellars and pick up some Old Rasputin or Expedition for much less cash, which are both at least as good if not better.
there’s nothing “cheap” about this “stunt.”
The insanity was built in due the the small amount of the bottles and the high demand.
Omar & co. are just managing it the best they can. So many are vying for their place in line, they were going to camp out overnight, and stand in line for hours to get that chance at a bottle.
Check out the trading forums on ratebeer.com and beeradvocate.com…people around the country, if not the world (I got a beermail from a Belgian BA wanting to trade for a bottle!)…folks are offering plenty of rarities just for one bottle of Darkness.
Should they have kept the beer in kegs, and left the bottling til next year when their production capacity is higher? Maybe…But then, due to our crazy laws, they wouldn’t be able to sell them at the brewery.
Will there be a Darkness Day 2008? Will it be even crazier?
It’s all in good fun, though, and it’s all about great beer.
(except those who are picking up bottles for trading, …I’m a little iffy on that..)
I agree w/ Ryan and bthek that part of the fun for certain folks is the buzz, waiting in line, excitement, etc. For others, that stuff can be an annoyance. I think either point of view has very valid points.
One thing I wonder about, what with creating buzz, is is that buzz sustainable? I mean, the notable trend for fads is a steep rise in popularity followed by a sharp drop in interest. I’m not saying Surly’s beer is a fad product, but some of the peak-and-valley risk could be there. It’s nice to see the popularity of the product and it’s nice to hear the challenges of keeping it on the shelves or on tap, but I hope that twelve months from now they haven’t over expanded and find themselves in trouble.
My only point is that it’s not worth the wait.
Yeah, it good beer, but not to the level of insanity surrounding it.
Good for Surly for doing well.
On the other hand all you have to do is look at the whole bogus Rate Beer and Beer Advocate system to see that the highest rated beers are merely the hardest to get.
Gee, what’s #1 on one of those sites? Westvleteren 12. Not like you can easily get your hands on that.
I think to some extent Surly is a fad. HOPS!!! HOPS!!! HOPS!!! Yawn. Been there. Done that. Same with RIS, which to beer newbies is cool, but from what I’ve observed, as a beer nerd for more than a decade now, is that palate’s grow.
Many people gravitate to the extremes in hops and gravity, but after some time look for more nuance and flavor variations.
There’s more to beer life than a hop kick in the face.
I see where you’re coming from, now.
So be it, more for us.
You forget as well, Steve, how small, that is to say, teeny weeny Surly is compared to North Coast and Bell’s.
The don’t have the ability to ship out across the country, let alone package more than 480 bottles.
It’s the quality and the rarity, and the fact that they’re OURS. From the beginning, Omar has marketed the company in an inclusive way, making Surly fans feel that they are a part of something. It’s worked, and that’s why those people will be there at 4am, to be a part of that.
The lemmings comment was unseemly. You don’t want to participate, fine, don’t need to knock those who do.
Sure, you can get 72 ounces of Expedition for that $15 vs. that 25 oz of Darkness …but it’s not the same.
And if you really wanted to compare the three, you should have been at the Blue Nile on the 30th. A few chose Expedition as their favorite, but no one put Darkness last.
I got the last out of our kegs last Monday. Drank it slowly in silence, after locking up.
It’s worth it.
Me, and Im guessing many, many people believe its worth the wait. A lot of the people that will be there will be the same people that have been supporting and drinking Surly products since the first kegs rolled out in early ’06. Al said it best when he said that surly “is ours”. We pay their salaries. Should be a fun day regardless of the temp!
From Al’s comment, “Omar has marketed the company in an inclusive way.”
That’s a great way to describe the effort.
I think the marketing is better than the beer. Much much better than the beer.
“It’s the quality and the rarity, and the fact that they’re OURS.”
Rare does not mean good.
Yours? How? You are what you buy? You’re the sum total of the products you purchase?
Steve, we will have to remain in complete disagreement, especially about the quality…but you misunderstand my meaning, re: “OURS.”
Omar has said in many interviews that beer is one of the few things left in America that people care about where it came from. Beer drinkers are loyal to their local, and it means so much more that they are brewing the type of beer that’s being made around the country, yes, the extreme styles, the hoppy styles, the unique inventions (find me a beer quite like Bender anywhere!)…and they’re from here, and they’re brewing beer for Minnesota in Minnesota.
For years, MN beer fans have been wishing that our breweries would make bolder IPAs and Russian Imperial Stouts…and cranberry flavored not-doppelbocks…well, maybe we hadn’t thought about that one…cask beers, dry-hopped, limited releases, festival only brews.
For so long, we hope and wish that this or that brewery would enter our market and sell their products here, be it Stone, or Alesmith, or Three Floyds, or what have you. Now, finally, there’s a Minnesota brewery that people in other states wish were distributed there.
That’s what “Ours” means.
P.S. Rarity does not mean good, but quality does. That’s why it’s in that sentence.
That’s cool.
I’m just a skeptic, but I guess that’s obvious.
To me, all the special releases and limited edition things come across as exclusive and not inclusive.
Um. Actually I referred to the “ownership” before Al did.
24 comments? You can do better than that. DB’s challenging us to get to 50.
Someone should donate fire pits to Surly for the weekend…
MNBeer is as guilty as anyone (probably more, really) for banging the drum hyping new local beer. We’d been around for a while before Surly arrived on the scene and gave them plenty of free press. Of course it doesn’t hurt that we enjoy the beer…
Fifty?
What’s the record?
Hey, I shouldn’t have made that lemming remark. I didn’t mean to insult lemmings. 😉
(Hee hee. That should be good for more posts.)
Steve,
I’ve got no problem with you not being a fan of Darkness or Surly beers. The plan from the get-go was to brew beers that not everybody would be into. I do have to disagree with your contention that we make people wait around for all our beers.
Lets take this weekend for instance. How would you sell 480 bottles of Darkness to the people that want it? Whatever you think of the beer, others will be waiting in line, flying in from out of town and driving in from out of state. Lets say we start selling the beer at 9:00 in the morning, when do you think people will start lining up? Probably Friday evening. If that happens, that means some people will be camping out overnight, in the winter. That does not seem like such a great idea. Should we sell it later in the day? Then what, people get there at 7:00 AM and wait for 12 hours? Everyone at the brewery has been working on ways to make everyhthing go as well as possible. This is the best we can come up with.
Folks also say why don’t you brew more Darkness? and Why are the top rated beers so rare? The answer is not as insidious as our attempt to create a limited amount of this beer to create demand. This beer takes around 6 months to make. We bought one 30 BBL brite tank to make this beer. OK, lets make more, we will dedicate 3-4 tanks to making more Darkness, Smoke, and other beers that are special release beers at ABR. Guess what, we then can make nowehere near enough Bender and Furious. The bottom line is we can not make enough beer to meet the market demand.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great problem to have.
Todd and I spoke about building a brewery that brewed great beers and didn’t comprimise, that’s why I think the people are standing in line, the beer.
Omar
Omar-
Don’t get me wrong. I like some of your beers, but just don’t get the whole lining up thing. Even if it wasn’t one cold December.
OK. For a keg I might.
Steve, how would you suggest they distribute it?
How? Heck if I know.
All I know is I wouldn’t stand in line for 5 hours for any beer.
Now if you had Hannah Montana tix I’d totally be there. :O
Can’t say I’m much of a Hannah Montana fan. It just isn’t good beer drinking music.
Omar, thanks for the insight. Can we count on the release of Surly Hot Chocolate on Saturday? 😉
This gets me thinking about the mulled scotch ale that Town Hall cooked up last winter. Kind of weird but definitely warming!
all I will say is that if the whole lining up thing ain’t for you, then stay in bed, get some sleep and enjoy your day. The rest of us will be in line for a great minnesota beer brewed by minnesotans FOR minnesotans. There are many things that i feel are completely ludicrous ( black friday shopping). Therefore i stay home and sleep. Like was mentioned above already, beer to SOME people is something they can take pride in ya know, support your local economy and whatnot. I don’t know everything, just that i’ll be there with bells on! And I am completely confident that the surly crew will make the day well worth the wait whether i get a bottle or not. See you there!
What a difference a year makes! Last year, I arrived to buy one of 30 growlers of Darkness 20 minutes before sale time, and I was the third person in line.
I can agree with Steve to a point. If I get there at 9 a.m. and have to wait 5 hours for some darkness, that I can hack. Back before D-Day details were divulged, the plan was to arrive with a couple of pals around 10:30 and tailgate with homebrew, the growler of Surly Bender we’d inevitably purchase later, some meats, a portable grill/self-contained fire pit – especially useful for heating up some gluhkriek. Then came the mention of a 9AM gate opening, which increased the wait time. Still, after a few weekends of putting up xmas lights, the idea of tailgating for beer for 5 hours instead of 3 still was an appealing one. If I can do essentially the same thing at Bockfest, what could possibly dissuade me from doing so for some marvelous Darkness?
Well, darkness! Seeing the kinds of times mentioned that could be used interchangeably with the wake-up time of a dairy farmer (4AM is a better bedtime than a rousing time) give me pause. The price – the time price – for the opportunity to cellar some Darkness just became too steep. Suddenly, oppotrunity cost rears its ugly head, and Plan B, the day where I get my christmas shopping done, stop at Cafe 28 (the Minneapolis one, not the Chicago one) for some nosh and some Surly Smoke, the pursuit of a substitiute imperial at one of our fine liquor establishments, and finish with a Flat Earth brewery tour, becomes more attractive. I’d be so cognizant of looking like those idiots I love to deride who were up at 3am for a Wii on black friday.
My plan, since ryan was interested in arrival times, is to queue up at around 8AM, right or wrong. Right, and I get to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow brew bon vivants, tailgaiting food and fun, and, ultimately, the reward of a couple of bottles of excellent bottles of beer and the chance to later drink the spoils and judge journey versus destination. Wrong, and I have a free day in the cities, $33 more at my disposal (hello, Smoke), and brewery tour to attend.
(But I really hope I’m right 😉 )
Dear Steve: Shut the fuck up!!!
you are against waiting in line for beer…people will wait in line for Surly beer, therefore your opinion is invalid…therefore SHUT UP!!!
what does hannah montana have to do with any of this?
is that any more valuable than our beer supply.
P.S.
forgive me,. am a litte how you say…..
Brazz, Im slightly confused by your post. So are you waiting in line, or not? Plan A or Plan B?
Al-
My opinion is my opinion. Just like yours. Deal with it. I’d bet you there are more people who wouldn’t stand it line that would.
And if you think Surly is slicker than snot good for you, but it’s simply not all it’s cracked up to be, fanboy.
The Hannah Montana thing was something called a joke.
LOLOLOLOLOL!!!
YES!!!
Holy smackerels you are one cranky s.o.b., Steve.
Also, whoever first brought up Black Friday was on to something. I look with some disdain [sorry] upon people waiting in line for hours to save a few $ on an mp3 player.
But on the other side, I am considering waiting in line for hours [albeit hopefully with a grill and some drinks] to buy beer, an act that would dumbfound them as much as their waiting in line at Wal-Mart dumbfounds me. I suppose a little understanding on both sides would be nice.
To come into this thread and piss all over people getting excited about this day is a sign of a small man hopelessly attempting to make a loud, important noise.
Wow.
I get called a hater, small, and told to STFU becuase I’m trying to understand the mass psychosis that is Surly Fanboydom and beuuase I have a differing opiion?
Is this the Surly Fan page where you have to worship all that is Surly?
Or can a beer geek ask a question or express an opinion without get beat down?
Don, I’m glad you brought up Black Friday. That’s the same sorry thing you’re doing.
Steve, you keep repeating the same thing over and over, we get it. You do not think Surly Darkness is worth waiting for five hours in December temperatures. Got it. Thanks now drive on through. We’ve dealt with your opinion and disagree. You started this thread by calling people fanboy because they like a certain product more than you, that is a bit rude, of course people will react aggressively to that.
Oh and design, is more than graphic design it’s recipe design, branding and the whole kit and caboodle of product design. The product is the beer, and if it tasted like dishwater, the ‘cool factor’ would not exist for very long.
bthek-
I’m responding to some questions.
And trying to get to 50, as challanged. 😉
If fanboy is the wrong word for blind loyalty please suggest another. Maybe cult member?
Sounds like Steve will be in line on Friday night!
Trav-
I’ll be there with Kool-Aid to share….wait…most of you already drank it. 😉
The nice thing about Saturday is that if you’re bringing beer, you won’t need a cooler… 😉
I should say I did have some Darkness at the Gnome a few weeks back and found it very good, if perhaps a tad too hoppy up front, but with wonderful complexity.
blind loyalty? Surly hasn’t exactly asked me or anyone I know to take a blood oath. I buy the beer and I get pleasure from it. It’s a good relationship, I’ll maintain it.
I think logical explanations were made quite early in this thread as to why a person will wait in line for Darkness. I will restate them for you: 1)Some people like object x more than other other people like object x. Doesn’t matter what the object is, someone will take this affection to an extreme level. 2) People will stand outside for hours in the cold waiting for a football game because of the festive atmosphere and the eventual payoff of the game itself. 3)Minnesotans and to an increasing degree more Americans are major “homers.” Tell someone something is local and they will praise and support it. Whether the praise is deserved or not is subjective.
bthek-
Yeah. Got that the first time you said it. I don’t buy the hype.
There’s a world of beer out there and Surly would not be in my top 100.
Or my top 10 if I had to limit it to Minnesota.
Steve,
Are you my long lost blood brother?