Surly Darkness Day 2012 Details
This Saturday, October 27, we’ll be opening up the brewery for the hordes of Surly Nation who come every year to get a first taste of our Russian Imperial Stout, Darkness. We celebrate the launch every year with great beer and special releases, food and music.
You don’t need a ticket for Darkness Day, but if you’re planning on buying a 750ml bottle of Darkness, you’ll need to get a wristband. The first 1,500 in line outside the brewery will get wristbands and will be able to buy up to six bottles of Darkness at the brewery from 11am. Bottles are $18 and it’s CASH ONLY.
Darkness wristbands will be color-coded. We will be bringing in groups of 150 people at a time. Signs will be posted at the event to let you know when you can enter the brewery to purchase Darkness. If you miss your allotted time, you will be able to enter later to purchase bottles with any other group.
If you miss out on the first 1,500 wristbands and we have bottles left, we’ll be holding a second sale around 4:30pm with a maximum of four bottles per person. If you miss that, Darkness will be in bars starting Monday, October 29, and bottles will be hitting stores starting on Monday, November 5.
If you do plan on getting here early to get in line for a Darkness wristband, Chef Shack and Caribou Coffee will be serving from 6am until 11am to help keep you going until the gates open. We’ll also have Surly volunteers working through the night to make sure everyone has a good time. The volunteers will blackball anyone being a dick in the line, so don’t be a dick or you won’t get in. Also, don’t cut in line or hold a space for your buddy, we don’t like that.
The Beer
From 11am until 6pm, we’ll be pouring 8oz Darkness, Smoke 2011, BrettLiquor (a Belgian-style IPA fermented with brettanomyces), casks of tea-bagged Furious, oak-aged Cynic and Bender, and 12oz. pours of Bandwagon, Hell, Damien, Furious, Cynic and Bender.
We’re going to be staggering the pours throughout the day, so keep an eye on the boards at the pouring stations to find out when beers are available.
One $4 ticket gets you one beer (8oz. or 12oz.) and we ID everyone, so you better be 21+. Anyone under 21 must be accompanied by an adult.
Want to buy your buddy a Surly at Darkness Day? Surly will be trying out a new app that lets you buy beers for your friends. Go to Slingerapp.com, enter some info and a virtual beer ticket will be delivered to them to redeem during Darkness Day.
Dark Art
You’ll be able to get hold of Darkness merch through the day featuring this year’s wicked artwork from local artist Brent Schoonover. Grab a Darkness shirt, poster or chalice, or stop by the Surly store for all our other regular merch, which you can check out HERE.
To get you excited, here’s a video of Brent talking about his artwork. He came to the brewery to see Darkness being bottled earlier this week. He’s also going to be drawing Darkness Day-themed portraits in the brewery during Darkness Day. You can get one for $10.
HEAVY Music
There will be live music all afternoon from four bands: God Came From Space at 11am, We Are Legion at 1pm, and Wolvhammer at 3pm.
Then, our very own Todd Haug and his band POWERMAD are on stage at 5pm, their first Darkness Day appearance since 2008. The guys have their first album in more than 20 years coming out next year, so make sure you don’t miss their triumphant return to Darkness Day!
Get To Darkness
If you’re coming from out of town, you can find us HERE.
Our gracious neighbors have let us use their parking lots, and there’s overflow parking at Caribou across Highway 100. If you’re hardcore enough to go green, we have limited bike parking on the north side of 48th and Drew.
Finally, if you’ve had too much to drink don’t be dumb, get a taxi home. We’d much prefer you leave your car with us, as long as you come and get it before Monday morning.
Wicked Food
Make sure to fill yourself with more than Darkness through the day with some great food from Stanley’s On Wheels, Smack Shack, Natedogs, Barrio, Scratch Food Truck, Groveland Confections and The Chef Shack.
#darknessday
If you’re dying to tweet about what you’re drinking at Darkness Day, make sure to let us know @surlybrewing, using #darknessday. We’ll check it through the day to see how you’re all doing.
See you drinking,
Omar Ansari
Surly Brewing
October 27, 2012 @ 5:29 pm
I would like to know why my wrist band to purchase Darkness was taken away. I drove 500 miles, stayed up all night in line, am a craft beer fan, and had a beer on the 26th. I have purchased your beers in the past and been to Darkness day before. They were great events, but this one soured me and I will never come to your event again or purchase any of your beers. This could have been a mistake in identity and I was very tired. I also will not argue with police that were near the person who collected the the bands because I was from out of town. I left the event right after this happened and drove back to Indiana. I am now a former fan.