From Omar:

The possibility of Darkness Day 2009 looked pretty grim this year. As of Jan 1 this year, we were no longer able to sell growlers/750s at the brewery and it did not look like any changes were going to happen on the legislative front. I was about to pull the plug on Darkness Day but figured I should make one last call. So I called Tom, Brooklyn Center Liquor store manager about the possibility of them becoming involved in selling of Darkness bottles on D-Day. Much to my surprise, Tom was pretty excited and said he thought he could make it work.

A little background – we are located in Brooklyn Center. The city owns and runs the 2 liquor stores in this city. The only way this whole thing would work, is if the city would get on board, and they did. It seemed that Darkness Day would be saved! Of course, with the City involved, they would have to make their margin for their work. The beer will sell for $18 on D-Day, but we will be getting about $3 less a bottle then last year.

Darkness Day has become what it is from a combination of goofy MN beer laws and the insatiable demand for the beer. 3 years ago when Todd and I heard that people were buying glasses of Darkness at a bar, pouring it into a bottle, capping it, and the trading/sharing it with friends, we figured we better find a way to package and sell this beer. We wanted to have a party for the folks that came out and make a fun event of the selling of Darkness. We are able to continue that event this year on October 24th.

We decided to brew a bit more Darkness this year. That additional liquid would find its way into more bottles, about 2500 more bottles. When Mary (our event coordinator) and I sat down a few weeks ago to figure out how D-Day was gonna run, I realized that we had too much beer to sell. Trying to get all the people through the building in 6 hours was simply too difficult. I did not want people to wait all day and find out they would not get any after waiting 10 hours, so we went back to the old wristband idea of last year (you get a wristband and you are guaranteed 6 bottles). As we figured out how to make this work, I realized that we have enough beer to sell at the event and to local liquor stores. So that’s the plan. 5000 bottles here at the brewery like last year and 2500+ bottles to local liquor stores. Hopefully everyone that wants a bottle will be able to get one.
-Darkness Day is October 24th.
-Gates open at noon
-the first 800 people will get wristbands. The wristbands guarantee that you will be able to purchase a maximum of 6 bottles of Darkness. You will not have to wait in line once on the premises. You can walk around, drink a beer, check out the bands, whatever. But you will need to purchase your bottles by 6:00!
-$18/bottle. CASH ONLY!
-There are no tickets needed or cost to get in the event. Rain or shine or snow or cold.
-We will not ship Darkness nor will we hold any spots/beer for people. It is a 1st come, 1st served event.
-Extra bottles of Darkness not sold on the 24th. They will be sold on October 26th at the Brooklyn Center Liquor Store.
-2500+bottles of Darkness will be sold to liquor stores starting November 2nd.
-Bands will be playing. Food & beer will be available for purchase.

I will post more info as the event gets closer and I figure out what the hell is going on. Thanks again to Tom at the Brooklyn Center Liquor Stores and the City Council of BC for helping us make this happen. See you on the 24th and hope for warmer weather!