A Whale A Week: Three Floyds Dark Lord 2012

Now in my second year, A Whale A Week is my challenge to try (with an array of beer loving friends) a rare beer for every week of the year.  Last year I had a great time with this and have continued it for 2016.  Not every beer will be a truly "white whale" beer, but all are hard to find and a treat to try!

Three Floyds Brewing Dark Lord 2012 Vintage

This week we point our attention to a famous brewery from Indiana, Three Floyds!  Located in the small border town of Munster, the brewery started up way back in 1996.  They have grown and become quite famous for their "Its Not Normal" style beers.  I've had the pleasure of getting to the brewpub where it all started a few times now.  The tour was nothing special, but the beers and the food were fantastic!  Each time I went, there was a big line outside 45 minutes to an hour before they opened, so plan accordingly.  The brewery vibe is very Heavy Metal and irreverent, surely influencing other breweries such as Surly here in Minnesota.  In fact Surly and Three Floyds have done a couple of collaboration beers such as Urine Trouble, Baller Stout, and Blakkr.

Dark Lord is the brewery's most famous beer.  This is a big 15% ABV Russian Imperial stout brewed with coffee (Intelligentsia) and Mexican vanilla.  Available in bottle since 2004, the beer is released only one day of the year--Dark Lord Day--at the brewery.  This day has become an epic event with people camping out and traveling across the country to take part in the festivities and get a few bottles of this rare beer.  My friends Rob and Ron of Limited Release actually recorded the 2012 festivities for their show and I've linked it to the bottom of this post if you want to see what this is all about!  Oh and Rob brought me the bottle we are tasting for this Whale A Week from that excursion.  Thanks Rob!  Dark Lord is rated 95 on Beer Advocate and 100 on RateBeer and is much hoarded and traded.  I first tried a bottle of this shared by Chris German of BSG at a Jack Of All Brews event held in his home brewery--perhaps around 2009?  For me that was one of the best beers I had ever had up to that point and it became my unattainable White Whale--until I got to try it again in 2012!

For this tasting we gathered up the largest group I've ever used in one of these tastings--our entire group of Jack Of All Brews officer's--during our 2016 planning meeting.  Things got a little chaotic!
Eric Wenting: Me! BJCP National ranked judge, homebrewer for over 25 years, stout fiend.  Sarajo Wentling: My tolerant wife.  Tyrone Babione: BJCP judge, writer for BSG.  Annette Babione: BJCP judge, knitter extraordinaire.  Joe Lushine: Homebrewer, guy who hates judging beers.  Shawn Wischmeier: Judge, homebrewer, beer hoarder.  Steven Mathistad: Homebrewer, craft beer lover.  While reading the bottle we saw Cyrillic writing on the bottle and Tyrone managed to translate it visually with a cool app on his phone--we were all blown away by this seemingly magical effect!

We cut off the thick red wax on the bottle with The Hopsecutioner (my battle axe shaped heavy steel opener made by my blacksmith friend Martin Pansch).  The bottle opened with only a small fizzing sound.  The beer was poured into a group of waiting snifter glasses for our expectant crowd.

Aroma: In which our party get ready for an complex and sweet beer.

Eric: Dark, dark chocolate.  Deep dark candied cherry is strong.  Vanilla notes.  Hint of roast.  Very sweet smelling and sugary.  Slight oxidation (papery) as warms up.  Raisins.  No hops.
Annette: Dark Chocolate, cherry, toasty coffee, wood (oak) drifts lazily.  Smells like the syrup you wish you could have on a pile of pancakes.  Hint of soy sauce.
Joe: Malt forward.  Small hint of hops. Soy sauce.
Steven: Slight smokiness.  Raisin.  Wet cardboard.  No hop aroma.
Shawn: Chocolate, raisin, molasses.  Deep malty aroma.  Sherry or port-like aroma--like an aged English barleywine (Thomas Hardy's).
Tyrone: Black strap molasses entices one's nostrils deeper into a dark pit--a siren song beckoning those who have only known the light to disappear into darkness.  Sweet songs of perfumed pit fruits, plums and dark cherries, mask the forbidden.  A slight oxidative note warns of old warlock magic ahead...

Appearance: In which our explorers bemoan the lack of head...

Eric: Deep brown to nearly black in color.  Hint of ruby highlights at edge of glass so it isn't completely opaque.  Very fine light tan head fades quickly to a ghost.
Annette: Black in color.  Opaque.  No head.  Rings around edge with little lacing.
Joe: Opaque.  Hint of red.
Steven: No head.  Very dark brown.
Shawn: Dark, opaque.
Tyrone: Dark brown center--absolute clarity with bright orange halo framing the edges.  No head or noticeable carbonation.

Flavor: In which fruit and fortified wine notes cavort across our palates, and Tyrone gets even weirder...

Eric: Holy chocolate covered cherry!  Bourbon-like vanilla notes.  Very very sweet.  Not much roast to this.  Hint of hop flavors.  Alcohol is present but not hot.  Smooth finish but borders on cloying for me.  Dark cocoa.  Not picking up coffee.  Raisin and dried cranberry as it warms up leading to a tartness and a sherry-like oxidation.  Almost no carbonation accentuates the syrupy thick mouthfeel.
Annette: Chocolate cherry that feels heavy but drinks light.  The choco/cherry syrup coats delightfully.  A light bittering compliments the malt and sweet notes.
Joe: Very sweet.  Low bitterness.  Caramel flavor.  Thick!  Maybe a hint of oxidation.
Steven: Plum.  Very sweet.  Doesn't taste like 15%!
Shawn: Same raisin, molasses, dark malt as aroma.  Sherry-like flavors.  Grain bill a bit too much, even for a RIS.  Bordering too malty, giving a strong, overly malty finish.  Flat profile.
Tyrone: Chewy Fig Newton drops a juicy load in the puckering back pockets of my mouth.  A sweet almost golden raisin-like sweetness comes close to making the intrepid hero torn away--until it washes away in a smooth finish, calling him back to his heroine siren.

Overall: In which we all need some water...

Eric: Smoother than I remember it, but it has been a few years!  Still very sweet. The chocolate covered cherry flavor is unreal and more spectacular than most actual cherry beers I've had.  Almost tastes barrel aged due to the oxidation and vanilla.  I gave this a 4.5, but ended up dropping to 4.25 because the finish was so sweet.
Annette: Delicious!  While this could have gone the way of cough syrup, it instead was a beverage best served over ice cream.  The coffee, chocolate, and cherry notes blend nicely with the hop bittering--mixing perfectly.  4.2
Joe: Good beer.  A little out of balance toward the malt for my taste.  Is a little cloyingly sweet to start but finishes surprisingly dry.  3.5
Steven: Smooth, medium body.  Very enjoyable.  4.25
Shawn: Exceptional balance in ingredients.  Aging improved the beer a lot and gave way to sherry-like character.  Beer has a bit too much specialty malt character, however, to be excellent.  Alcohol warmth is very appropriate.  The aroma was my favorite part of the beer.  4.25
Tyrone: The Dark Lord rises from the syrup molasses swamp.  He trudges through a thicket of crushed and fermented figs, dates and prunes rain from broken branches and trunks; his skin stained with the crushed souls of raisins.  4.75
Sarajo: It fell a little flat for me.  3.5

Overall Score: 4.1

Below is the Limited Release episode for Dark Lord Day 2012!

Photo info: This week I took a close up of the bottle label and superimposed it with Photoshop Elements over a macro shot of a Warhammer chaos warrior miniature I painted back in my teens.  I thought it was "metal" enough!
Also I created a new Whale A Week intro photo using one of my only watercolor paintings (the other one was stupidly given to a girl) from about 1993.

Three Floyds Brewery

On a recent trip to Chicago, my childhood friend Bryan and his girlfriend Megan took me on a little field trip to the not-so-bustling town of Munster, Indiana for a visit to the fabled Three Floyds Brewery.  I've been a fan of their beers for ages, though I admit some of that may be the fact that I can't buy them in Minnesota.  In tone, the brewery has a lot in common with our home-team Surly Brewing: screw-the-man attitude, vibrant art style, irreverent beer names, and cult-like fan following.  All the things needed for greatness among the beer geek community.  And like Surly, they get by on more than attitude--they put out consistently good beer.

Waiting...

We arrived about 30 minutes before the brewpub opened to find a large line snaking into the parking lot from the main entrance.  This was no special event day, but apparently the place is always packed.  Luckily it was a balmy 50 degrees and sunny in small-town Indiana that day, but I wouldn't brave the elements in the middle of winter for it!  Squatting beneath the bulbous Munster water tower, the brewery building is essentially a large warehouse with an attached small brewpub.  There is a pub entrance and a second, smaller, door for walk in bottle sales.  A few minutes before official opening, an employee, using his best carnival barker's voice, explained the rules to those of us in line.  He explained the free tour times and allowed us to sign up for them.  Interestingly once in the brewpub, if your tour time comes up, they will save your seat for you until you return.  A nice perk since tables are hard to come by.  I do have to say, that the staff was great and despite being busy they really knew how to deal with crowds.

We were escorted to a small table near the rather minuscule bar and settled in for some great beers.  The bar itself is oddly decorated with a series of framed bottle art, Three Floyds event posters, and a mix of old toys and action figures.  Shelves of bottles, more toys and odd nick-knacks also surrounded the room.  Murals of Gumball Head the cat lined the walls near the restrooms.  Again I was shocked at how small the brewpub and bar is, with the popularity of the brewery such as it is.  Supposedly they had a recent expansion, but they obviously didn't go crazy with it! 

Bryan doing his "Robert The Bruce" impression!

They offer samplers of their four "regular" beers: Dreadnaught IPA, Alpha King Pale, Mild and Robert The Bruce.  All are good beers but RTB is far and away the best--a wonderfully malty and complex Scottish ale.  They had an extensive list of other beers, and offered most in full or half pints, though some were only served in 8 oz snifters (mostly double IPAs.)  Between the three of us we were able to sample many of the beers that fine day.  Still bloated from a huge dim-sum repast in Chinatown earlier in the day, we stopped drinking due to lack of room rather than too much alcohol.  I enjoyed the War Mullet and Permanent Funeral (both DIPAs) very much.  Bryan and I were very surprised that in addition to over-the-top hoppy, the brewery had several very restrained examples of classic Continental beer styles like and Oktoberfest (Munsterfest) and Schwarzbier (Das Kleine Schwarz Einhorn).  I wish there had been more time, and more room in my distended gut, to try everything, but we did fairly well.  Several of the beers on tap were collaborations with Metal groups, and similarly themed loud Metal music pervaded the pub.

We hit the free tour after our drinking was done.  You get what you pay for.  The entire tour took place in about 15 feet of warehouse space.  Our tour guide was good and knew his stuff, but this was a very fast tour that barely scratched the surface of such an infamous brewery.  I did like the artwork on the walls, including some old D&D art from the Dungeon Master's Guide of my youth.  Looking at the bourbon barrels filled with future incarnations of rare Three Floyds beer was intriguing.  They also had just received a large oak foedor as used by Rodenbach and New Belgium, but hadn't decided what to do with it yet.  I also spotted Brewers Supply Group malt shipments that my friend Chris is probably responsible for.  I was disappointed that we really didn't get close enough to look at the packaging line, or even the brew kettle, though I guess if you've seen one you've probably seen them all.

When done with our tour we joined the (now shorter) line for bottle sales and purchased some beers to take home with us.  They had a limitation to 2 cases of beer per person, and nearly everyone in line with us left with two big case boxes!  They did have a lot of t-shirts, but I was disappointed in the other brewery swag.  I would have bought a sweat shirt, or tin tacker or posters...but they were all out of those.  Pretty much beer, t-shirts and pint glasses only.  Come on guys, with your dramatic artwork and logo this is a huge area of potential money making for you!

I really did enjoy my trip out to the brewery, but have to admit I was slightly underwhelmed after the hype I have heard.  I wanted more grandeur and pomp!  I still need to get out there for Dark Lord Day one of these years (as seen on Limited Release in two separate episodes).