TGI Another Friday Pre- Dark Lord Day Story!

Since the first one was so much fun, I thought I'd give you another story about the day before Dark Lord Day! My excuse for running late is that the Hyatt in Chicago charges $15 a day for internet on top of hundreds of dollars for a room. Why can you stay at a $39 Travelodge and get free internet but the Hyatt piles on the charges? Anyway, I know I have to play catch-up, so here's another pre- Dark Lord Day teaser to piss you off.


Remember the previous post about waiting around for a hotel party? I was sitting on the couch in our room (yeah, I had a couch in my room. Also sprung for a nice duvet, armoire, and credenza) and kept falling asleep. Feeling too much like the old old man I am, I decided to do laps of the 3 floors of the hotel until I found a damn party. No nodding off to the sounds of 60 Minutes for this grandpa. Finally, hours later (maybe slightly less), I found some Ohio people who were entertaining in their room. We got in just in time for a vertical tasting of 09, 10, and 11 Founders KBS, a pretty damn good way to start a party. Others soon joined, bringing beers like Jester King Black Metal and Dark Horse Plead the 5th Imperial Stout.

Word spread of a tasting going on in the hotel lobby area, so we all packed our beers and joined in. This is where the trouble really started. You see, people weren't content to just break out some of their local Keystone Ice and save the good stuff for Dark Lord Day. From my notes (and notes, pictures, and a vague fuzziness that tells me I actually was there are all I have to go on), it looks like people forced me to drink: Cigar City Either, Cigar City Or, Founders Nemesis, Hair of the Dog Golden Rose, Surly Furious, Minneapolis Hall Town Brewery Masala Mama, Alesmith 2008 Old Numbskull, 2010 Dark Lord, Beezlebeer, Mikkeller Rauch Geek Breakfast, Short's PB+J, Central Waters Peruvian Morning, Cigar City Sea Bass, Pozharnik RIS...oh, and to rub it in, they held me down and poured Surly Darkness, Portsmouth Kate the Great, and Cigar City's Hunahpu's 2010 and 2011 Imperial Stout down my throat.

See? There's proof! That was no way to treat an honored guest who had traveled all the way from Albuquerque and who shared Marble beers with everyone (one person at the tasting remarked of Marble's DIPA, "No beer tonight has smelled as good as this Marble does,"). So you can imagine that I was feeling pretty good that evening. Was also pretty pround that I found our room without having to ask directions from the first floor to the second. But a night like that can take it's toll before the real event even begins. Looking back, I think they should have just put me on a board and floated me out to sea.

Relax- nothing more to write about except Dark Lord Day, so that's coming up next. soon. Promise.