Aging Hopslam

I wouldn't cellar any DIPA unless I intentionally wanted to turn it into a Barleywine / Strong Ale. It's not intended for the style with a few exceptions.

And I wouldn't consider 6 months "aged". Any beer I plan to age is condemned to my cellar for a bare minimum of 10 months, but depending on the style it's usually a year.

 

Earlier this year I had a 2 week old and almost 2month old hopslam, the difference in taste was pretty drastic!

I preferred the fresher bottle!

 

Because I buy more beer than I can drink, I have unintentionally aged some IPAs. Half of my beer tasting group couldn't tell the difference between a fresh and one year old continually refrigerated Hopslam. Everyone could tell the difference between a fresh and 2 yr old Hopslam. I cellar a lot of beer by necessity and have found that very few beers improve with age.

 

I had a 2013 just the other day. It was pretty damn good. Like others have said it really does just taste like a good American barleywine. Really malt forward still some honey And slight grapefruit.

 

It seems like this a matter of tastes and preferences but I did not enjoy this beer past 6 months.

 

I work in VT every couple of weeks and I try to pick up a heady 4pk everytime I'm there. Just drank a 6 month old heady along side a fresh one. The Hops in the 6 month dropped dramaticly, but the fruit taste really comes out!

 

Last year about this time, I did a vertical of Hopslam '09, '12, '13 and '14. I agree with lots of folks I spoke with in Northern Michigan about it really just turning into a solid Barleywine. I thought all 4 tasted great. Amazing the difference between the fresh one and the one only a year old > but I thought the bottle that was 5 years old was solid. Enjoy!

 

You are right. Every DIPA turns into a barleywine eventually. That is actually how barleywines are made (little known fact, but something everyone learns on BA eventually

 

I have 1 bottle from last year left. Gonna drink it side by side as soon as my trade comes in with 6 freshies

 

No one beer style magically turns into a different beer style over time. Unless you are a wizzard, in which case you can probably put your fancy skills to better use.

What you are perceiving is the hops fading over time, and the malt becoming more present. Hopslam doesn't turn into a barleywine over time. It turns into an old DIPA. That's like saying if you age a porter, it turns into a stout.

 

I agree completely, I just opened mine after 7 months and the hops were definitely faded, but it was still a great beer. I called it “The Ghost of Heady”. Have one more that I’m going to try in May, that’ll make it 1 year.

 

I saw a similar post last year and decided to throw the last bottle from my six pack in the cellar. I could not believe how good it turned out! I love Bigfoot, but aged Hopslam definitely takes the cake for me. That being said, I did not think fresh Hopslam was anything to write home about..

 

I drank this vertical with eziel, and have to agree. I think I enjoyed the idea of how much change can occur over time with Hopslam. It was interesting to see that progressive color change as well. I'll drink Hopslam at any age

 

People aging Hopslam......

 

Had a Hopslam last week that I deliberately aged for a year just to see what would happen to it and how it would taste. Like many others in this thread, I found a year old Hopslam to be extremely enjoyable. The majority of the hops fell out, but the honey really shined and popped after a year. I was expecting a total malt bomb but that definitely wasn't the case.

 

Very reasonable thing to do if you are interested in learning more about what happens to hop flavors and hop bitterness over time. Some hop flavors persist longer than others and its often hard to pick that up until after the bitterness has faded away. Similarly some malt flavors only show up with time and become noticable after the bitternes or some hop flavors are gone.

One example is the Stone 11th Anniversary Ale (which later became Sublimely Self Righteous Ale on re-release) starts of with lots of bitterness (expected since it was one of the first of what were being called "Black IPAs" for a while), but long after the hop bitternes fades there is still bitterness and it eventually becomes clear that bitterness is from the dark roasted malt which gives "black IPAs" their original name.

 

Some years back I bought a case of DFH 90 min. and I deliberately spread out drinking the bottles over 9-10 months so that I could have direct experience with the changes and how they took place. It was a very useful thing to do as it helped me to learn the differences among some hop flavors and bitterness, especially as the hop flavors and the bitterness seemed to change at different times. By about 9 mos., when I reviewed the 90 min., it was quite sweet with no trace of bitterness but there were still detectable flavors which seemed to be faded versions of hop flavors early on. But on the whole it tasted much more like a nice sherry than a Barleywine so I think that the folks saying DIPAs turn in to Barleywines are focusing primarily on the sweetness from the malt and simply don't have a better way of describing the change they detected.

 

I bought 2 6 packs of Hopslam this week. Drinking one and going to age the other to see how it turns out.

 

I got a case of HopSlam several years in a row when I lived back east and saved a bottle from each on a lark. I opened them at my going away party and they were all terrible.

 

I actually teared up as I drainpoured a few I had saved.