Knowing that the crowd would be bigger this year than in the past, we set out earlier than last year (apparently not early enough!) fully prepared for a full day at Three Floyds. We stopped and ate sandwiches before going so as not to be too loopy - too early. I packed a backpack full of tissues, napkins, my camera, phones, snacks, water, paper and pen, etc. All of the essentials for tasting beer, experiencing the aura of Dark Lord Day and networking with other beer enthusiasts.
Tony dropped me off to get in line while he ran the last of our preparatory errands (getting cash, pretzels and other things I forgot to pack). Due to the extreme weather conditions on April 26, 2008 - he also brought me my ski coat just in case I started to get really cold!
I arrived around 11:45 a.m. and the line snaked its way from Three Floyds south on Indiana Parkway, all the way around the perimeter of the School Town of Munster Service Center parking lot and back north toward the brewery finally spilling over into a neighboring business' parking lot.
There were four saving graces to the otherwise unfulfilling day... The sun helped to keep us warm despite the temperature in the low '50s and the gusting winds, having two of us in line allowed for Tony to make the hike up to the pub and purchase beer for us to drink while we waited (we also brought a cooler with Two-Hearted Ale and Crooked Tree IPA), we met very nice people around us in line who all had a great sense of humor and turned us onto some pubs we had never tried,
and a familiar character to regular readers of Jen and Tony's Beer Blog - Captain Steve (shown here with Tony) stopped by in between gigs to share a beer and visit with us while we waited in line.Around 3:15 or so someone from the brewery came around to announce that they only had enough Dark Lord left to accommodate people to a certain point in the line (pretty darn far ahead of where we were in line) so Tony and I decided to call it a day. We had fun waiting and we also had a Pop Warner fund raiser to attend that evening to help support our good friend, "The Coach."
Luckily we still have two bottles of Dark Lord 2007 on hand. I guess we will have to savor those as we make plans to get an earlier start next year. Perhaps it is time to camp out the night before?!
