Aging Hopslam

Hang me by my toes and beat me with a stick, but I am currently doing a Heady experiment, I’m currently about to drink my 6 month Heady and in May, I’ll be drinking it after 1 year. I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

failure.

I drainpoured the ones I tried to age.

 

I still have a 2011 mini keg of hopslam that im waiting to crack.. I wonder if it would age slower because of the can and volume.

 

A neighbor recently brought over a 2014 to drink...not good...or at least not what a good hopslam tastes like.

 

I've been saving 6 Plinys at the bottom of a well on an abandoned property up the road for going on 5 years! Can't wait to hoist them up from the depths, dust off the spider webs and guano and crack one open!

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I kid. I would not purposefully age any kind of IPA... unless it had been brewed with specific intent to be aged for a long time (i.e. Stone's Enjoy After or Green Flash's Rayon Vert)

 

Every hop heavy beer I have tried to age has turned into a sweet syrupy beer almost sherry like, not good/bad but completely different and no longer an IPA

 

I think you're on to something here…

ISO: natural-well-guano-aged [insert beer here]

 

I forgot about 3 bottles of Hopslam last year and found them about 4-5 months after bottling date, and it was just a malty mess. Can't imagine what 2 years would do to it.

I have never had success aging any hop forward beer. I did have a year old Heady once, and while still very tasty, it was nothing like a fresh can.

 

Hopslam.

I had a few aged ones and they were undrinkable.

 

I heard at 6 months Heady and Hopslam turn into barleywines.

 

I've tried bottles of various DIPAs that I have forgotten about, and as long as I have them prior to a fresh version, they sometimes come off as generally enjoyable, but as soon as I drink a fresh version, I always regret forgetting about the aged beer, as fresh IMO generally surpasses aged beers across the board for DIPAs. As I forgot about a bottle or two last year, I'll give Hopslam a vertical glance just for curiosity's sake, but I'm not hopeful that it will be enjoyable, especially versus fresh Hopslam.

 

I personally enjoy aged Hopslam. I don't care for it fresh, but my buddy @GeorgiaBeerGuy introduced me to it with some time on it. I think of it like an American Barleywine.

 

At '13 Darkness Day someone tapped a '11 mini keg of Hopslam. It was a barleywine pretty well by then. I thought it was pretty decent though, just needed to think of it as a barleywine and not a DIPA.

 

I don't think it's the right kind of DIPA to age. Ones that are very boozy and are similar to DFH 120min such as Hoptimum or Devil Dancer could do some interesting things with age but something like Hopslam I can't imagine would age well.

But any strong DIPA would probably just turn into a barleywine with age, although it might not be a good one every time.

 

I can't tell if any of the posts in this thread are serious

 

A couple of years ago I found a Hopslam in July that had been hidden in my fridge since February and it was still pretty hoppy and very good.

 

This beer ages surprisingly well, and is probably one of the only DIPAs I would ever consider aging.