Fade To Black: A Brewtal Night
Rottenness opening things up.
You know it’s a good night when you:
- Beat the Rep from Revolution Brewing in Street Fighter
- Attend a “brewtal” metal concert
- Attend Left Hand’s 20th Anniversary Party
What a way to start GABF!
The original plan was to spend all night at #BondedByBeer, a concert sponsored by TRVE, 3Floyds, Surly, and Real Ale Brewing. How could you not? I mean, especially when the beers available were:
From TRVE:
Tunnel of Trees
Grey Watcher
Stout o)))
From Real Ale:
Iron Swan
Hans’ Pils
Fireman’s #4
From Surly:
Pentagram
Misanthrope
Cynic
Bitter Brewer
Overrated
Hell
Coffee Bender
From 3 Floyds:
Zombie Dust
Alpha King
Gumballhead
Broo Doo
Thankfully, I’ve enjoyed all of TRVE and 3/4 of 3Floyds’ offerings reside in my basement, so I spent most of my time enjoying offerings from Surly. (Hey Surly, when are you coming to Denver?!)
Somewhat related: drinking a Coffee Bender is a good way to find yourself awake at 1 am. Nothing good happens at 1 am.
Anyway, as I said, plans change.
I love video games, and I love Revolution Brewing. They are a great Chicago brewery. When I heard that Revolution would be taking over 1up , we had to stop by to pre-party.
During our stop at 1up, Aimee, the Revolution rep challenged me to a game of Street Fighter for beer. This was the moment I had trained for all my life! Foolishly, she chose Chun Li, the champion of button mashers world-wide. Not knowing her skill level, I countered with Vega. Speed vs. Speed. Then this happened:
It pretty much happened this way. The video showing the beat-down is being used as blackmail. We’ll see how that turns out.
My reward: a nice Oktoberfest, and the knowledge that Revolution is hoping to be in the Denver market by 2014.
After leaving 1up, we went to the concert (btw, I still need a date for Saturday’s concert with Trivium and DevilDriver) across the street at The music was in-your-face, the beer, even more so.
After I polished off my can of Cynic, a great farmhouse ale, we took off to Left Hand’s 20th Anniversary Party. (I was given a pair of tickets – cool!)
Unfortunately the line was long, but by the time we got in there was still plenty of beer to be had. We had our own Fade to Black vertical of volumes 1-5, with No. 3 being my favorite (the pepper porter), and the missus choosing No. 4 (black ale) as hers.
During our cab ride home (side note: Uber Denver does not seem to work on the Sprint network…) we both decided that we maybe took on a bit more than we could chew. One event probably would have been enough.
We’ll see.
He is Risen!
OK, so most of you know that I like beer. I do drink a lot of beer, but I like to think of it as “research”. As a homebrewer, you have to try out different stuff. It’s good for the palate, and the imagination. And, as you undoubtedly know, I am a fan of metal. 3Floyds in Munster, IN is at the convergence of beer and metal. What happens when they put together a festival combining beer and metal? Well, I have to go.
One Bad Dude.
Dark Lord Beer is released once a year, on Dark Lord Day. Dark Lord Day is like Easter. Like a malty, oil-dark, cherry-noted, viscous, 15% ABV kind of Easter. It’s a resurrection of sorts, seeing how it’s the only time of year that 3Floyds releases the beer. This is my third year going to DLD, but it was clearly one of the more adventurous, uh, adventures.
What I brought for my friends.
Before any good adventure begins, one must do a lot of packing.
Living in Denver affords one the opportunity to heavily consume sample quite a few good beers. I decided to make a care package to take to Chicago, but since many of the more popular breweries now export to Chicago, I packed a sampling of cans and tastes that were not readily available.
Plenty from my local favorites, including Renegade Brewing and River North Brewery. (Had the festival been a little later in the month, I likely would have brought over some Mexican Chocolate Stout from the CKBC, but, oh well…)
After packing, I headed to the airport. I love going to the airport. I don’t know what it is about the airport: security lines that last forever, free frisking (seriously, all you have to do is ask!), people watching…whatever, you can do it all at the airport, and have a good meal while you’re at it!
Well, when I landed, I realized that I forgot to pack one important thing…
Yep. The tickets.
Jesus Christ! (See, this is about Easter!) What kind of idiot forgets his tickets?! Oh, yeah, this one. Here are some sample texts, for your amusement. Here’s how the situation unfolded, for your amusement…
-
- Sometimes, words aren’t necessary…
-
- Note the exclamation marks. For emphasis.
-
- And that’s how long it takes to overnight things from Denver to Chicago.
-
- The system works! One hour early, too!
-
- Phew! Thought I’d be sitting in the car all day. Looks like we’re open for business!
So anyway, back to the day itself. Welcome to the town of Munster, IN! We started with a Bean Gene from Revolution Brewing, and it pretty much went downhill from there…thankfully I took notes. (Don’t worry – I shared with all of my friends!) I think the best part of this event was the fact that you could also get some Dark Lord on tap – why waste bottles? Good move, 3Floyds…was that an option last year? I can’t remember.
-
- The line to pick up some Dark Lord. The guy behind me wore a Jigglypuff shirt. Rad.
-
- One (of several) beer tents. You could trade bottles, buy food, and other assorted stuff.
-
- Man down! A little vanilla bean Dark Lord was sacrificed.
-
- This is how people in the Midwest wind down…
Anyway, here’s a list of what we “sampled”, courtesy of Untappd:
- Bean Gene, Revolution Brewing
- Hoppenberg Uncertainty Principle, River North (popular with the Midwesterners)
- Double Trouble, Founders Brewing
- 3rd Year Bear, Rum-Barrel Aged Barleywine, Revolution Brewing
- Dark Lord 2013 (Available on tap! What?), 3Floyds Brewing
- Barrel-Aged Hell’s Black Intelligencer, 3Floyds Brewing
- Elevated Wood, Renegade Brewing (Oak aged Elevation)
- Behemoth, 3Floyds Brewing
- Tiberian Inquisitor, 3Floyds Brewing
- Calumet Queen, 3Floyds (you know, to class it up a little)
- 120 Minute IPA 2012, Dogfish Head Brewing
- Sexual Chocolate, Foothills Brewing
- Dark Lord Cognac de Muerte (So glad I have a bottle of this waiting at home…), 3Floyds Brewing
- Parabola (2012), Firestone Walker Brewing
- Barking Squirrel Lager, Hop City Brewing Company
- Dark Lord With Vanilla Beans, 3Floyds Brewing
- Zombie Dust, 3Floyds Brewing
- Gumballhead, 3 Floyds Brewing
Pig Destroyer, um, “destroying.”
Oh my.
Did I mention that there was music? Here’s a picture of Pig Destroyer tearing it up. I must say, I saw a Pig Destroyer video for the first time last week, and found it to be mildly disturbing (more the latent subtext than the video itself). Find “The Diplomat”, if you’re interested.
Anyway, between Bloodiest, Sweet Cobra, Municipal Waste, and Pig Destroyer, you could say it was a pretty full day. With an after party of burgers, brats, White Castle and Old Style awaiting, we had to head on home.
Well, there you go! If you want professional reviews of how things went, you can probably google it.
Oh, and I brought some stuff home, as well:
Some Zombie Dust, Alpha King, Dark Lord (duh!) Permanent Funeral, Toxic Revolution, and other goodies.
Hops Spring Eternal 