Bell's Hopslam (2018)

Where are you in Georgia?

 

Atlanta area. Hopslam is all over the place this week.

 

Any San Diego County sightings yet?

 

This years batch is great per usual. As has been said it very much reminds me of Stone Enjoy By. I dont see how anyone that likes IPAs could dislike this beer.

 

Bine & Vine and both Best Damn Beer Shop locations got them in late yesterday. Single can purchases allowed too.

 

Arrived Wednesday in NM. Bells first arrived around October of last year. So this is the first real chance at Bells HS in NM! Thought there would be a little hype. But nada

Can dated about ten days out when I bought i Friday. Impressive.

I had it once before 3-4 years back. but never this fresh.This time around. Initially sort of par for the course in aroma and taste. Sweet, somewhat piney. Slight citrus. A sort of waldos/enjoy by blend. About halfway through my single can purchase (sixers were $19. Singles up charged to $4 range), the beer really opened up. Much more citrus and slight tropical fruit elements. Honey started to come through nicely. Sadly when its all said and done, I still found it around a 4.25/5. Really enjoyable but I guess I'm just beyond the malty piney old school hoppy flavors.

I feel even worse for these breweries. They had 5 plus years of hype and built up capacity and distro to accomodate and they arent really popular anymore . Damned if you, damned if you dont. I hope these new school hyper local breweries learn from these guys. Yes, youre popular. But people will leave you at the drop of a dime. Fickle ugly set of consumers we have now IMHO

 

How is Bell's not really popular anymore? Sales seem to be a decent metric of popularity. Bell's had around ~18% in sales growth in 2017 (reference). Sales for Two Hearted, a notable 'malt bomb' by some, were up 25% in 2017.

 

^HS, from reports here on BA used to fly off the shelves. It used to be traded away by the case (same with nugget nectar). That same sort of hype should have carried over to a new state (NM) and I just dont feel it met its mark. I guess what you bolded was more in regards to seeing HS sit (and hearing about it sit all over the nation).

Bell's is still expanding to all fifty states, so all sales figures look to be in the positive. Yet I have already seen some 3 month old two hearted mixed in with some 1 month old new stock.

They aren't exactly taking any cues on trying to slow down at any given time. But I can tell you from seeing the hype die down since its October launch, they are no longer the cool kid in town. Sales probably jumped a couple hundred barrels giving them some nice end of year sales figures. But they arent exactly selling now. And The same is for FW, DFH, Great Divide. NM is still relatively new to many distributing breweries, but they arent stupid. If the price or quality isnt right, theyll stick with local mainstays

 

That's all anecdotal though. Extrapolating a beer's popularity from what you see at your local store is a bit unfair (and likely inaccurate) imo.

 

Same holds true for inferring it from comments/posts on this site.

 

Thanks for actually supplying a list when asked for similar beers. It doesn't happen enough.

Sixpoint needs to find their way to our shelves. If I had access to Resin/Hi-Res on a regular basis, I would probably drop my Hopslam habit.

 

Liquor stores here are pissed over a distribution snafu that resulted in grocery stores like Kroger getting it a week before many of the liquor stores. I admit I didn't want to wait and picked up two 6 packs from Kroger. They also ended up being 2-3 bucks cheaper than what the liquor stores are now charging.

I am enjoying this years better than last.

 

Same as it has been for years...nothing special at all.

 

FWIW that pretty much sums up my impressions of this beer in past years. I have not had the 2018 version yet.

Cheers!

 

Yet it seems you keep trying/buying it over the years. Expecting it to 'change' one of these years?

 

I guess it's a check to make sure my tastes aren't regressing. Nice troll tho.

 

Welcome back, old friend .....





..... this was the first DIPA I tried (2009/2010 timeframe), my first experience was ..... challenging. I went from Two Hearted to this over the course of about a month. Tried to drink it like a Two Hearted.

Once. Didn't make that mistake again.

The key, IMHO, is allowing this to warm a bit - it really evolves as it warms, with the citrus hop flavors coming forward, in tandem with the honey. This is a 10% ABV beer, and it it poundable. How is that possible?

Is this "old school" compared to the hop bombs that are capturing so much attention in the beer nerd world? Absolutely. But I'll always have room in my beer fridge for a beer executed this well.

 

I don't know how this translates to the cans, but I had a few glasses on draught earlier in the week and found it to be quite lustrous and vivid- the best version I've had yet. What really impressed me was how seamless the flavors were- you couldn't tell where the hops, malt and honey all began and ended; it was so nicely cohesive altogether. It's great stuff, and I think I can finally see where the affection for this beer comes from.

 

That is what I love about this beer and I find it in the canned version. The flavors are so well balanced, nuanced but full. I find it delicious and easy drinking. It is very well executed by Bell's as it should be. They have had quite some time to perfect it. Haters gonna hate. What I find as well balanced others find a malt-bomb, too sweet, or overly bitter. I'm fine with it. Drink what you like.