From 2007 to 2020, the Silicon Valley Sudzers brewed an aggressively roasty, hoppy Russian Imperial Stout called Dark Matter. Over that time period, 21 different vintages and blends were created. The original recipe, created in 2007 by Guy Cameron, who went on to brew at Russian River and become the brewmaster for Floodcraft, was inspired in part by Bell’s Expedition Stout. In 2009, a large batch was brewed by Dan Rosbrugh, which ended up taking the first place ribbon for stouts at the 2011 National Homebrew Competition regional judging in Lodi. Details about the 2011 batch are lost to time.
2009 Brew Day. Note the extremely stable setup to support the mash tun with 80+ pounds of grain and 20 gallons of water.
On March 29, 2025, about a dozen club members gathered to conduct a vertical tasting of 18 different versions dating from 2012 to 2020. In general, like the San Francisco Giants in the early 2010s, our beers generally seemed to be better (or at least better suited to aging) in even years. Following are the brewer details of the batches we tasted.
2012 brewed by Keith McKay – 20 gallon batch. Grand Prize winner of the San Jose KraftBrew Fest homebrew competition.
2014: Sixty gallons were brewed to fill a Breckenridge 53 gallon bourbon barrel and to top off as the angel’s share evaporated. 10 gallons each were brewed by Mike Conant, Tyler Dassow, Rich Kindall & Jim Williams, Chris Ringer, and Derek Wolfgram. Adam Campbell and Nathan Howell contributed 5 gallons each. The amount of time the beer spent in the barrel is unknown.
2015 batches A, B, C, D, V – One of these was brewed by Justin Vincent, one by Mike Conant, one by Nick Osborne (which sat on an aggressive amount of oak cubes for two years), and one by Derek and Steve Casselman. No idea which was which or why there are five bottled batches from four brewed batches.
2016 brewed by David Fortune
2017 Batch A (25% Mike Conant, 25% Derek, 25% Derek oak aged, 25% Marc-Andre Harvey oak aged)
2017 Batch B1 (24% David Fortune, 24% Marc-Andre Harveyoak aged, 24% Mike Conant oak aged, 15% Jay Pecot, 12% Kevin Wolf oak aged)
2017 B2 (26% David Fortune, 26% Marc-Andre oak aged, 26% Mike C oak aged, 13% Kevin Wolf oak aged, 11% Jay Pecot,)
2017 B3 (29% David Fortune, 29% Marc-Andre oak aged, 29% Mike C oak aged, 14% Kevin Wolf oak aged)
Blending and bottling day for the 2017 Dark Matter
2018 A, B blends of brews by Tim Topole, Chet Simocko, and Cliff Sullivan – the first all-electric Dark Matter. Blends unknown, but the A batch was brewed with American yeast and the B with British yeast.
2019 Robert Curlee 30 gallon batch brewed at Crescent Farmhouse Ales
2020 batch C brewed by Chris Kramer, batch T brewed by Tim Chandler, batch R brewed by Robert Curlee. During COVID, these three batches were brewed and bottled separately, then distributed via Robert and Derek leaving bottles on their front porches for members to pick up.
18 different versions of Dark Matter
The 2009 Dark Matter recipe, scaled for 5 gallons