Three Floyds Brewery + Distillery, Munster, Indiana
As far as we can tell Dark Lord was first bottled back in 2004. As recently as 2009 the annual celebration for its release was a free event. Nowadays the price is 200$ per ticket…for a beer festival.
Gates opened at 10am but 41 degrees, rain and a Group D designation meant show up near 430pm and hope for the best.
Three Floyds is a small, local business slowly taking over its entire block. A recent brewery expansion includes a five-story distillery. For the first time Dark Lord Day allocations ran through the new space.
I had to flip the question back to the Minions when asked which variant I wanted. We left with two wine barrel aged offerings. Quit Hitting Yourself (madeira + porto) and Trump & Pump (sauternes).
the struggle
all inclusive ticket w food/ drink vouchers this year
20th Anniversary FFF Glassware
The bottle graveyard ran down Superior Avenue for a half mile and included breweries from every region of the country.
2016 vintage of Dark Lord does a nice job of not being exceedingly candied. 2012 (red wax) was a low point for me in that regard. Those undertones of molasses, black cherry and roasted dark chocolate are present but don’t overwhelm this year.
Headbrewer Chris Boggess describes the Three Floyds crew as silly headbangers with an obsession for fantasy based characters. Chris and FFF President, Nick Floyd play Dungeons & Dragons weekly. Brewery employees receive a Conan The Barbarian statue after five years of service and a model pirate ship after ten.
This year saw the debut of the Alpha King the comic book at DLD. Expect at least a five-issue series co written by Nick Floyd and Brian Azzarello. It’s a pretty big deal, Azzarello has written for Wonder Woman and Batman, he was also signing 4$ copies of the comic at the fest
Partygoers made claims of bottle allotment theft from backpacks; fortunately we did not witness such madness. There was however an underlying theme of Three Floyds not giving a fuck about you in every line we stood for some reason. It was an odd concept considering six bands took the stage under the main tent and a DJ played sets all day in separate tent. Not to mention every customer left with a barrel-aged version of Dark Lord.
Regardless of how you feel about them, this ride shows no signs of slowing down.
Fact is by 2006 Three Floyds only produced 4000 barrels a year. By 2014 production increased to 40,000. The new expansion includes a state of the art German bottling line and a capacity near 100,000 barrels annually of bold, flavorful ales when complete.
Warpigs is their sister brewery collab project with Mikkeller in Copenhagen.
Blot Out The Sun American Imperial Stout just scored a Gold Medal at the 2016 World Beer Cup.
The most polarizing brewery we’ve ever seen is rolling full steam ahead with or without you.
–Nkosi
my copy of Anna Blessing’s Locally Brewed autographed by Head Brewer Chris Boggess
