I’ve been missing here in the blog world mainly because of two things. First is my volunteer gig at Summit has left me with a pile of beer in my basement and I think in the past 2 weeks I’ve had about maybe four new beers and only one of them I’ve had at home. Of course about three weeks ago I was at the Founder’s opening day in Minnesota at Stub and Herbs and had their elusive Canadian Breakfast Stout which is barrel aged with the barrels being both shared by bourbon and maple syrup, Not bad but definitely not the worth the 5 dollars per 8 ounces I had to pay for it. Rip off. However prior to the tapping of this they accidentally mixed up the Dirty Bastard keg with the CBS keg so a few lucky people got a whole 16 ounces of it, I missed it and it was going to be by next beer. Town Hall is coming out with their single hopped beers this summer. First up is their Cascade. Love it, going to get a pint tonight. I would explain it but the name speaks for itself. Not overtly hoppy but just enough. Very nice. Then up at the Campus Club here at the U of M they have two Left Hand Brewery beers, their Oaked Aged Imperial Stout and St. Vrain Triple. The triple was decent but pretty bland but the stout was really good. This was probably the better stouts I’ve had in a while, nicely balanced but rich enough to give it some complexity. It’s been aged  in Heaven Hill brandy barrels which makes it much different because it seems that most barrel aged beers are always some sort of booze from the scotch family, though I am sure scotch people will tell me there is no “family” so I apologize, hard liquor is not my thing. If you’ve read my prior posts you may know that I am not a big fan of the big dark beers these days but this one seemed to work for me, much better than my last stout which may come off as sacrilegious  to everyone who reads this.

Three Floyd’s Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout. The beer I drove 400 miles for. What is there to say about this beer. Where should I start. Well let me start off by saying that this beers is not too readily available to everyone. You can only get it one day a year from the brewery, hence Dark Lord Day. It currently sits at number 5 in Beer Advocates top 100 beers, their Vanilla Bean Dark Lord is now at number 3 and Founder’s brewery Canadian Breakfast Stout is at number 10. Vanilla Dark Lord and Canadian Breakfast Stout are really rare, you cannot get them in bottles and they seem to only pop up in small batches at certain events or at the brewery. In fact by looking at Beer Advocates top 20 off the top of my head only a certain few are readily available and that is sort of misleading because while number one and nine Westvleteren’s are available all year round, you can only get them at the source, the monastery in Belgium.

Now, why did I mention this? Well it leads me to my opinion on why Dark Lord is so well loved. It is hard to get your hands on. Not that by any means it is a bad beer but why are the top beers there and other sites and blogs always seem to love the hard to get ones? Out of Beer Advocate’s top 20 I’ve had 5 and only two of them I really like, the Founders Breakfast Stout (the original) and Town Hall’s Masala Mama. So you can say my opinion is fairly baseless on the other 15 but most of them are hard to get or limited releases which beg me to question that are these really that good or do people get so worked up to try them that when they do their judgment is clouded by that fact. I know when it came to Dark Lord that at the brewery when I had my small glass I loved it. I also loved it at my friend John’s house that night but I was also drinking a whole bunch of other stuff that day so my palate was rather worn. Then I shared one of my bottles with Beckel at Legal Beer and this is when my opinion started to question the greatness of this beer. Before the DL we split a bottle of He’Brew’s 10th Anniversary beer and I found that to be very good. Then we cracked the DL and I found myself searching for the part of me that thinks that this was better than the He’Brew 10 and I couldn’t. Beckel was observing it, jotting down some notes, trying to figure it out and I was just thinking why I wasn’t getting into this. Maybe because it was room temperature? I do like my beers cold or at least cool, maybe that was the problem. So on Saturday night for game five of the Stanley Cup playoffs after I biked 50 miles in the rain for the Tour de Cure and did a 4 hour stint at Summit I chilled my final bottle, poured it into my snifter, sat back with my notepad and finally approached the DL mano a mano.

The appearance is straight up motor oil. Darkest stuff on the planet. Little bit of a brown frothy head but not much. The aroma was a smattering of malts, chocolate and coffee, plus some dark fruits. The flavor was pretty potent and way too sweet. There were also the typical flavors of an Imperial Stout but this was just too much. It lingered in my mouth all night with a waxy coating and by the end of the glass I was choking it down. When it came down to it I finally had to face the music and say that I did not really enjoy this. I even tried to pawn some off on my wife but after two sips she said that was enough for her. I really do not know why this is so popular, or maybe I do. Heck even with Surly Darkness I felt the same way though I think Surly’s is slightly better. I remember my first taste of it at Stub and Herbs at the Darkness tapping and I finally got a glass and was thinking, is this supposed to be this way? It’s too much, all of it, too much. It’s like a Jackson Pollack painting, everything just dump on a canvas and people in the art world just loves it while everyone else goes, “WTF?”

This is what Dark Lord tastes like.

Not that I do not appreciate abstract art because after all that is what I paint but to fawn over it so much? And not that I do not appreciate this beer but I really think that it is on the low end of the Russian Imperial Stouts I have had. So is it the hype or is it that this is just not for me? I think a bit of both. Though I cannot fairly judge people’s opinions I do know that the more something is unattainable the more people want it and when the finally get it they can let their pre judging effect their actual opinion. Then again maybe people actually do genuinely like this, I see no reason to not think that some people find this enjoyable. But for all they hype it gets and how it seemed to be such a crazy ordeal I can only guess that being it is such a pain in the ass to brew and they can only make so much and how word of mouth seems to be stronger than actually having it that making an event out of this works so much better that having it all year round and readily available. Because I would have to guess that if it were we probably wouldn’t see this or other “top beers” being so loved.

So will I go to Dark Lord again? For sure. As I stated Dark Lord Day was fun just being there. And getting a bottle or two would be fine with me but I will spend most my money on Three Floyd’s other gems. Dark Lord is hype Dark Lord Day is not.

Three Floyd’s Dark Lord Russian Imperisl Stout

C-

**EDIT** I might also add that Beer Advocate’s Top 100 is based on ratings compiled by member reviews not beer experts (but don’t tell them that). So that may also explain the group think mentality.