Osama is dead or Friday Links

So I hope to post some relevant links to interesting stuff on Fridays.  Hopefully it will be a mixture of baseball, beer, brewing and bourbon. So here we go!

• Patrick Michael has a great preview of the Cubs upcoming home-stand.
• Aleheads have a great list of Mexican beers in honor of Cinco de Mayo
• Take a minute to read about the legislation going on in Illinois related to craft brewing. 
• Check out the Unitied Countries of Baseball.
• Great Tribune article on Small Batch Bourbon

Happy Friday everyone.

Dark Lord Day or rather Dark Line Day

This year I had the opportunity to attend Dark Lord Day at 3 Floyds Brewery in Munster, IN.  For those of you who don't know, Dark Lord is a Russian Imperial Stout brewed by 3 Floyds, and is only sold once a year.  As craft beer as exploded so has Dark Lord Day.  This event, while considered a festival with beer sales, guest draughts and food, is almost more of a tailgate.  People set up both inside and outside the event with coolers and chairs while discussing the finer points of beer, trading rare brews with others, or touting their nano or pico-brewery.

This years event was touted as more organized, with less time spent in line and more time enjoying the atmosphere.  For comparison, last year I waited in line for over 5 hours to be able to purchase my Dark Lord  with my golden ticket.  There was no rhyme or reason to the line, and near the beginning of it many people would just hop in and get their beer. For yesterday's event, tickets were sold in groups of A, B, or C with different time slots to buy the beer.  Initially there was only one line of  beer buyers in group A, and people just wanting into the festival.  This was caused by the gates opening at the same time as beer sales were to start. Eventually, however, they split the lines effectively making both run smoother and faster.

I would say overall I spent about 2 hours waiting in line for my beer.  Not too bad compared to last year.  But I didn't attempt to even enter the guest draught line due to its hour wait, which is a shame when looking at the list of brewers and beers. Some lessons to be learned for the brewery, in my opinion:

• Create two separate lines for people buying DL vs. people wanting into the premises
• Open the gates an hour before the DL sales begin.
• Add more guest taps or another location with guest beers
• Organize with the neighboring businesses to aid in parking

Now onto the beer.  This year they did not offer samples of the 2011 Dark Lord like last year, so I wasn't able to try it. I am going to let it age at least 6 months before I even consider drinking one.  Here is a picture of one of the bottles.

I was also able to buy and try the Evil Power Imperial Pilsner. This pilsner was quite a bit darker than your average pilsner, with a maltier flavor and a bit more hope bite.  It was still delicious.

Finally, the Cubs are on a 2 game win streak.  Who would have thought? I am loving the production of Castro and Barney, and Zambrano and Matt Garza have been great. Look for posts this week for a mini-keg update as well as (hopefully) the first post about the history of beer and baseball.  Also an update on the Seal Ale and recipe ideas for some wedding beers.