(Munster, IN) –

Dark Lord Day 2009

is finally upon us. For many, and for good reason, it is the greatest beer event of the year. Beer people from all over gather to share bottles (and cans and growlers) from their local breweries and share some rare acquisitions. It is also a day when you will find great beers on tap from Three Floyds, Russian River, Firestone Walker, and others. What other event/bar features these breweries on tap where you can get more than just a “sample” of the beer? All of that said, in our little world of craft beer, it is one of the most controversial beer events of the year. A lot more on that in a minute, but first a few details about DLD ’09:

Today’s event starts out at 11am, with bottles going on sale beginning at that time. Some have started to line up already (it is 10:30 am CST as I write this). Those who do not redeem their tickets (‘redeem’ means that you still pay $15 for each bottle) by 6PM forfeit their bottles, which then go on sale to everyone. Be forewarned, there could be a scrum around that time for those remaining bottles. Word also came from the brewery this morning that the bottle limit for today’s event is eight per person which translates to four per “golden ticket.” That is two more bottles for everyone from last year’s six. The brewery also increased its batch size this year, meaning that more people leave the brewery with beer. And there is live music, etc. Hell, they even lined up Pelican which is a fairly notable band in the Indie scene.

This year, the brewery introduced a ticketing system for the first time should make things a lot smoother. There will still be a line and there will still be complaints when people who have already got bottles get in line again for those remaining ones (the brewery may have a way to prevent this, not sure). Gripes should be down from prior years and there should be less in-person scalping . . . or so we hope.

Why less scalping at the event? Because many have done it already. While tickets will alleviate a lot of the DLD Day anxiety of having to get in line as early as possible to ensure getting bottles, it has come at a price. Over 250 “Dark Lord” bottle listings have been posted on eBay in the twelve months since late April 2008 pertaining to last year’s event. This year, before the event even started, there were already over 50 listings for tickets on the auction site.

A quick glance at completed listings shows that approximately 65 tickets were sold for a sum of around $3,500 before shipping. Note that some of the auctions may have been sabotaged though the bids I counted seemed within reason, that is, if bidding over $200 for a pair of tickets is “reasonable.” Many tickets went up for sale on Craigslist as well. This is just an estimate but it would seem to be a safe bet that scalpers have profitted well over $5k off the tickets, doing so more easily than ever before and before a single bottle has been sold.

Aside from the scalping, some West Coasters complained about the time that the tickets went on sale. From what I remember, they sold out fairly early having gone on sale in the wee hours at 4 or 5am EST. West Coasters would have had to hop online before 7am their time in order to get tickets. Doable but inconvenient.

Overall, the ticketing system was an experiment and will probably prove successful with regard to making things more enjoyable at the event. And despite the seemingly increased scalping that has occurred because of the tickets, there is probably no way around it.

One thought to tweak the system next year is to require some form of identification that matches the info entered when ordering the tickets, making the tickets non-transferable. Are the tickets numbered? If so, the brewery could hypothetically determine how many tickets out of this year’s allotment were transferred and see if this is even a remote possibility. Though if you make it non-transferable, that will increase the scalping at the event and scalping of actual bottles afterward.

Another thought is to number the bottles and take down names. That way, when bottles go for sale online, Three Floyds now has the identification info of who put those bottles up for sale (assuming they post the #’s up). Whether the brewery would ban those people from returning or report them to eBay or the cops would be anybody’s guess. That could potentially screw over anybody giving away a bottle for free to a stranger or someone trading a bottle to someone that will put it online.

Sure, a great debate could be had over how best to manage Dark Lord Day, but in the end, one has to raise up his or her glass to Three Floyds and toast a brewery that could make a beer so great it would cause this madness in the first place.