Embracing the dark side of beer during winter for the fourth year, the Font of Darkness returns to The Wheatsheaf Hotel in Adelaide from 6pm tonight, with the darkness continuing across July. Wheaty co-owner and chief beertender Jade Flavell told Australian Brews News that the month long event is “looking bigger, badder & blacker than ever.”

The Wheaty is well known to many in craft beer circles as a haven of good beer on draught in Adelaide, a city that remains relatively void of craft beer centric bars. However, the Wheaty’s talent is that it is essentially a classic, unassuming Aussie pub that offers no apology for its diverse and regularly changing range of modern beers instead of a portfolio of beers from Fosters of Lion. A beer nerd’s hot-spot to some, a neighbourly local and watering hole to others. The seasonally appropriate dark beer showcase will surely warm the hearts of many, enough for them to not question the expensive use of coffee cherries that have been harvested from the feces of the Asian palm civet in the bar’s Randall-handle hop infuser. [JD]

Font of Darkness 2012.

July is the month to surrender to The Wheaty’s other Winter ritual – one that doesn’t (necessarily) involve frocking up – ‘The Font of Darkness’. We sacrifice 7 of our 13 taps to the dark side, pouring varying shades of black across an entire font (and the handpump), exploring roast in all of its fiendish manifestations…

Opening tap line-up for The Font of Darkness:

1. Brewboys Ace of Spades (Handpump)
2. Hargreaves Hill Foreign Extra Stout
3. 8 Wired Big Smoke
4. Mornington Peninsula Brewery Porter
5. Temple Brewing Midnight IPA
6. Steam Exchange Milk Chocolate Stout
7. ‘Poo Moo’ – Moo Brew Seasonal Stout poured through The Glasshopper – filled, with OJ’s [Moo Brew head brewer] blessing, with Indonesian Kopi Luwak Weasel Coffee Beans.

Followed by: Bridge Road B2 Bomber Mach 2.0 & Robust Porter; Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout; Woolshed Brewery Firehouse Coffee Stout; Moo Dark; Mountain Goat Mocha Porter & Surefoot Stout; Feral Smoked Porter & Karma Citra Black IPA; Viven Porter; Rogue Dad’s Little Helper Black IPA; Moylan’s Orange & Black; Kooinda Black IPA (TBC); Prickly Moses Black Panther IBA; Hop Dog Beer Works (TBC); 8 Wired C4 Coffee Double Brown; North Coast Old Rasputin…

The Other Font: Because it’s not all black on tap in July, we’re also lining up kegs of: Unfiltered Epic Armageddon IPA; Emerson’s Birddog Pale; 8 Wired Haywired & ReWired Brown; Tuatara Double APA; Mornington Peninsula Brown, Imperial Amber & ESB; Hargreaves Hill ESB; Temple Brewing Saison, Saison de Miel & People’s Pint Red Rye IPA…

The Font of Darkness features seven Australian craft breweries making their tap debut at The Wheaty and we’ll be pouring some of their ‘lighter’ brews on the Other Font throughout July as well:

• Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company (VIC)
• HopDog BeerWorks (NSW)
• Kooinda Brewery (VIC)
• Mornington Peninsula Brewery (VIC)
• Prickly Moses (VIC)
• Temple Brewing Company (VIC)
• Woolshed Brewery (SA)

Kegs on for as long as they last; Darkness pouring throughout July.

Launch Event: The Font of Darkness unveiled from 6pm Wed 4th July

Date & Time: Wednesday 4th July 2012, from 6:00pm

Location: The Wheatsheaf Hotel, 39 George Street, Thebarton SA 5031

Details: Meet Dark Lords Gareth (Steam Exchange Brewery) & Simon (Brewboys)