Founders Black Party was a unique experience. I’ve never been to the brewery before and it’s one of my favorites. After navigating the construction-riddled freeways we parked along side the brewery and walked in shortly after the party started. Well, it was already packed solid. We stood in line to get our glasses until we were told to head to the bar to pay and get our wristbands. After waiting loner, we then has to take our wristbands back to the entrance to have them put on while we got our commemorative glass and free drink ticket.
After that, waiting at the bar to get our beers was the worst part. People sat at the bar all night making it impossible to order anything without hanging over their backs. It was frustrating too that, from what I heard, lots of people that were there prior to the party hung around at the tables and bar as long as possible dispute the inability to order beer with out paying the cover. Of course I’m just more angry at myself for not getting there sooner to secure a nice seat.
But I digress. We got our beers and I started with Canadian Breakfast Stout, currently the 5th highest rated beer on BeerAdvocate Best of BA where as Sweem started with a Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout. Both were delicious as expected. We nursed them while we reviewed them to get a goo feel for them but also to pace ourselves and stay sober. The difficult part of this process was picking a location. Inside there was no where to sit and it was louder and warmer than all hell. We ended up outside in the cold wind where people were often smoking but at least we had a place to sit. This is where we sat, all night, sharing the table with Chris from Beer Buffalo Lodge and his friends and later on a few people who were great conversationalists.
Later on in the night a few (I believe) bands played but we ended up leaving shortly into the first band’s set. Inside it became a little less crowded as people had either left or headed towards the front of the stage to watch the band.
The night carried on with more beer and reviews of Black Biscuit, Death, Kentucky Breakfast Stout ’10 nitro-tap, and Cherry Porter. Sweem gave his free drink ticket away and I shared my glass of Dirty Bastard with Chris.
The only disappointing thing was that I didn’t act fast enough to have a Backwoods Bastard soaked brat which I was looking forward to. Sweem was able to have one with Chris and both said the beer involvement with the brat was minimal so I don’t feel completely angry with myself. And at $4 a brat, the price wasn’t too bad either. The beers were also well-priced. At $8 to get in with a “free beer” and glass you can keep and 8 oz high gravity pours for $5, it was pretty stellar.
Overall I found it to be a successful trip and awesome time I hope to make next year but one I’ll be getting to much earlier at.
-Andy
