Dark Clouds Supporters Partner with Surly Brewing to Offer Complimentary Beer at Tailgate

Limited amounts of complimentary Surly beer will be available  at this Saturday’s tailgate for the Minnesota Stars FC game which will kick off at 7:30 at the National Sports Center Stadium in Blaine, Minnesota.

The 2012 Dark Clouds Supporters Scarf.

The Minnesota Stars FC supporters group, Dark Clouds, has developed a unique relationship with Surly thanks to one of its members, Rich Harrison, who is a long-standing Dark Cloud member and supporter of the Thunder and now the Stars.

Surly, one of the hottest growing microbrewers in the US and based out of Brooklyn Center, will be available at all home games if you are over 21 years of age and show a photo ID and a match ticket. According to Dark Clouds member Andy Wattenhofer, there is a limit of one per person while supplies last. Surly will only be available for one hour each game day starting an hour and a half before kickoff time.

Surly contributed to the Dark Clouds’ cause last fall during the Stars playoff run. As one can imagine, free beer at a soccer match tailgate, and quality beer at that, was a huge success. That contribution was negotiated by Brave New Media and One Simple Plan, a public relations firm who worked with the Stars for their home opener.

This year’s support from Surly was negotiated by Harrison who has been involved with Surly’s community outreach program, Surly Gives A Damn. Harrison, a landscape architect and Uptown resident, volunteered to do work with Surly on the Minneapolis Greenway clean up three years ago. He said he had a lot of enthusiasm for what he was doing and Surly appreciated that. Since then he’s been working on many volunteer programs for Surly.

As a thank you for the contribution of pre-match beer, the Dark Clouds will be organizing volunteer projects as the Dark Clouds’ Silver Lining with Surly’s Give A Damn program this year.

The Dark Clouds have seen tremendous growth this past year, partially from years of hard work supporting the team but also from last year’s viral success of Brave New Media‘s video coverage of the Stars that featured the relationship between the team and the Dark Clouds. Other members like Jim Crist and Jim Oliver can be found doing trivia nearly every Saturday morning at The Local for EPL games. While running the trivia they are spreading the gospel of the Minnesota Stars.

The Metrodome home opener saw the biggest Dark Clouds tailgate ever and many signed up for membership. The membership package, which has many benefits,  is new for the supporters group this season, but membership isn’t needed to stand with the supporters in the east side of the NSC Stadium on Saturday night and sing, chant, laugh and badger the opposition. You get all those benefits for free.