The Dark Lord Tastes Like...

It is always tough for reality to live up to expectation. Earlier this year, I had a delightful experience where my expectations were met. Opus One is one of those wines that gets a lot of hype. I had a glass in 1996 and wasn't super impressed. It might have been the state of clarets back then. It was more likely an indictment of how green my palate was. Jumping forward 15 years, we ordered a bottle on a recent cruise. I was truly impressed. It certainly deserves its reputation.

Not so the Dark Lord. This beer has legendary status amongst craft beers. I have heard about it for years. It is available once a year at a festival in Indiana; tickets sell out in five minutes. A colleague of mine offered to pick me up a bottle this year. I was so excited!

Last night we cracked open the Dark Lord. Many words could be used to describe this beer: sweet, syrup, coffee, chocolate, intense, experiential. However, would I describe it as good? Not really. At first I thought it wasn't a style I'm wild about...my phase of liking heavy dark beers ended about five years ago. However, my partner loves dark beers and he disliked Dark Lord even more than I did. It really tastes like they are trying too hard, and their cult-like following does not want to admit that their holy grail of beers, The Dark Lord, tastes like alcoholic YooHoo.

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