Aside from some of the larger beer festivals, Darkness Day has become one of the state's biggest annual beer parties. Each year Surly unleashes its highly sought-after Darkness with a massive party at its Brooklyn Center brewery, filled with food, live music and of course, plenty of beer.
There's a feverish desire among aficionados to get their hands on this decadently rich Russian imperial stout, which has led to huge overnight lines. Now in its seventh year, those lines have swelled from a couple of beer crazies to the legions that swarmed the brewery last Friday, a day before the official event. Darkness Eve has taken on a culture of its own and the chance to buy a few bottles of the chocolate-y, raisin-hinted stout the next morning is only part of the appeal.
"If I left without buying any Darkness, I would still be thrilled," said Levi Loesch, who has been to the last six Darkness Days. "Just hanging out, drinking beer, giving it away, trying stuff that other people brought — that's the event for me."
Loesch took his place roughly 100 people back from the front of the sprawling line that stretched along 48th Avenue N. and wrapped around Lilac Drive. An avid homebrewer, Loesch brought six kegs of his sour beers, offering samples to passersby, many of whom offered him various beers they had brought in exchange.
After dark, the street turns into a tailgating shantytown, with tents, fire pits and tables displaying stashes of exotic beers to be shared. "You have to bring something special," said Mark Sheriff of Columbia Heights. "You can't be bringing what you can get at the liquor store. Everyone brings stuff that is hard to find."
Sheriff and his buddy Dan Larsen were first in line when they arrived at 10:15 a.m. on Friday, but were kicked out until the afternoon, as Surly asked fans not to start queuing up until 3:30 p.m. But Sheriff wouldn't even stick around to purchase the six-bottle allotment he would be entitled to for waiting in line.
"I actually have to work tomorrow morning, so I'm not even going to buy Darkness tomorrow," he admitted.
Although John Borgeson said he would be sure to buy his share of Darkness, the Minneapolis resident looks forward most to the bottle-sharing that is part of Darkness Eve. He has a card table lined with limited Surly releases, including Darkness bottles he's saved from past years. Earlier that night he did a vertical — beer-geek speak for side-by-side tastings of the same beer brewed in different years — of Firestone Walker's Parabola, a limited Russian imperial stout not sold in Minnesota.
