It appears so.

Those dedicated to the “Darkness” will likely get a taste of it this fall.

A partnership between Brooklyn Center and Surly Brewing Co. has resulted in the city’s liquor store agreeing to sell Darkness beer during Surly’s annual festival in October.
“We spoke at a work session about an opportunity for Brooklyn Center Liquor to act as a third liquor store for a festival happening in October for our local brewing company – Surly Brewing Company. Because they have grown significantly, they are not able to sell their product as they package it. It has to be sold by a third party vendor,” said Daniel Jordet, director of Fiscal and Support Services, at the Tuesday, May 26, Brooklyn Center City Council meeting.

A lease agreement approved by the council allows Brooklyn Center Liquor to lease a space in the Surly Brewing Co. building, 4811 Dusharme Drive, to sell the beer for one day during the festival.

The beer [Darkness] will be purchased from Surly Brewing Co., delivered to the leased space and sold in special 750 centiliter bottles that are smaller than the previously sold growlers. A growler, as defined by Surly, is a “refillable, reusable glass beer jug” for individuals to purchase 64 ounces of beer to bring home.

Surly Brewing Co. was prohibited as of Jan. 1, 2009 by state law to sell growlers once production exceeded more than 3,500 barrels a year. Owner Omar Ansari said last fall that it was anticipated the company would produce at least 5,000 barrels in 2009.

“They [Surly] wishes to continue to control distribution of this product at this festival and not make it a general product,” Jordet said. “The way for them to do that is to have Brooklyn Center Liquor open a special space.”

The lease agreement, Jordet said in a memo to the council, does not violate state regulations. It is estimated the sale of Darkness beer will generate a minimum of $10,000 in net profit for Brooklyn Center Liquor after costs of lease, staffing and mobilization.

“Thank you for considering this,” Jordet said to the council. “It is an exciting opportunity for our local brewery and exciting opportunity for the city as we expect to profit from this venture.”

And, per Omar:

The city of Brooklyn Center has been very good to us. As a last ditch effort to keep D-Day going, I called Tom Agnes, BC Liquor store Manager. He was pretty enthusiastic about working on a solution to continuing D-Day. It looks like we do have something figured out. There are a few more people to sign off on this before we make official however. The State has to OK this stuff and I don’t want to jump the gun. As soon as there is a definitive YES, we will post the dates for Darkness Day and SurlyFest. The hope is we will have about the same amount of Darkness for sale or maybe a little more.
In other news, I met with local artist DWITT about designing this year’s Darkness label. Check out his stuff at www.dwitt.com. You can’t go wrong with a guy that started International Can beer Month!
Omar

Sweet