Bell's Hopslam (2018)

Updated with correct price ($16.99 w/ dollar off Jewel promotion, not $15.99 - couldn't edit my original post.

 

Canned 1/10/18, bought a sixer and drank a can on 1/16/18. That is definitely the quickest I've ever had a beer arrive from canning/bottling date here in this rural area. Even Born Yesterday takes 2 weeks to arrive.

 

I am not a big IPA guy, much less a DIPA guy, but I picked up a 6 pack of Hopslam last night. For some DIPA comparison I had it back to back with SN Hop Bullet and Short's Superfluid.

I'll note that Hopslam strikes me differently every year, and I've been buying it for 10+ years. This year it is strinking me as very malt forward and the "honey" aspect is more forward than in previous years. The hops are more on the aroma and less on the flavor. It was sweet, a bit too sweet for my taste. Some years it is and some years it's not.

Fyi, with these three beers Superfluid was a clear #1 to my tastes. I would put Hopslam at #2 and Hop Bullet at #3.

 

I buy a sixer every year and savor it.. Hands down a gem for me

 

I have had the exact same experience.

I remember a conversation I had with an LHBS employee where he claimed that Hopslam had a honey/sweet taste because of the honey used in brewing this beer. I responded: But, isn't honey fully fermentable; all of the sugars should be fermented out. He shrugged his shoulders and basically repeated his thought that it was the honey which made this beer sweet.

I am personally not a fan of the Hopslam batches (seasonal releases) that are too sweet.

Cheers!

 

Actually, honey isn't 100% fully fermentable (IIRC it's closer to 98%). Yes all the sugars are fermented out, but that leaves behind the honey flavoring agents (e.g., pollen) that give a particular honey it's flavor. (There are a wide variety of honeys whose flavors depend on the flowers that the bees visit to collect the nectar. So clover honey will have a different flavor than buckwheat honey and both will be different than sourwood honey.)

So the flavoring agents remain behind in the beer along with any residual sugars. Thus the guy you chatted with could very well have tasted honey, just not with the original sugars that the honey brought to the table.

 

Whether the aromatics/flavors of honey will be perceptible is dependent on when the honey is added. If Bell's added to honey to the kettle and boiled it (which they may do to sterilize the honey of wild yeast) then the aromatics/flavors will get boiled off

Do you know how honey is utilized by Bell's in the brewing of Hopslam?

Cheers!

 

The honey flavor is perceptible to me in Hopslam every year, but some years, like this year, more so than others. I've always wondered if they use a malt, like honey malt, to boost the perception. I've never brewed with honey before so this is just a guess on my part, but the honey character is very much present.

 

No idea how it is utilized in brewing, just that it is sourced from within Michigan, which leaves open the possibility of the flavors being from some variety that is produced in fairly large quantity, but in MI.

Personally, I'd say it's probably not added to the kettle and boiled since part of reason I don't regularly buy bottled Hopslam is the honey flavored sweetness it shows. I generally don't care for the honey flavor in beer.

Edit: Also since some folks feel honey is best used for brewing in it's raw, unfiltered, unprocessed state I doubt Bell's boil off the flavoring agents and nutrients.

https://byo.com/article/brewing-with-honey/

 

They say they use honey sourced from MI.

 

Not a big fan, personally. I can understand why people like it but it's just not for me.

 

I have hombrewed with honey many times and out of an abundance of caution I have always added it at the end of boil as a sterilization precaution.

From the linked BYO article:

“…if you want a lot of honey character, add diluted, heat-treated honey to the primary fermenter (more on how to heat honey later).”

Basically the heat treatment is a pasteurization process. I have on more than once occasion thought about pasteurizing the honey I use in brewing and then adding it to the primary but this always struck me as a ‘pain in the ass’ process so I have never personally done it.

Getting back to Hopslam, even if Bell’s followed the step quoted above I wonder if the aromatics of the honey would be noticeable given the fact that Hopslam is heavily hopped (including dry hopping: “massive dry-hop addition of Simcoe hops”). Common sense to me is that honey aromatics would not be perceptible in Hopslam do to “massive” hopping.

Now, sweet is a taste and if a beer has a sweetness aspect this will be perceptible regardless of “massive” late hopping.

Perhaps @scottakelly has a good thought here that a specialty malt (honey malt) is used in the grain bill to add a sweet taste to Hoplsam?

Cheers!

@AZBeerDude72

 

I'd have to clean out the fridge pretty thoroughly, but I'd pay $40 for a mini keg of Hopslam. That sounds freaking delicious! Not something worth trading for though.

 

Well, since we have multiple reports of folks who are able to pick up the honey flavors...

 

It's a solid DIPA, but I never understood the hype or the pricing. You can get other similar beers for about $9-12 a sixer. Even certain Ballast Point beers at $15 a 6-pack.

 

And what might some of those "similar" beers be? As for Ballast Point, I've had 5 or 6 different beers from them and didn't find any simlar to Hopslam.

 

I can't think of any other DIPAs made with honey, but you really can't taste it in Hopslam. So, I think these are similar to it:

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
Stone Enjoy By
Victory DirtWolf
Victory Hop Ranch
Founders Double Trouble
Sierra Nevada Hoptimum
Sixpoint Resin
Sixpoint Hi-Res
Great Divide Hercules
Lagunitas, just about any DIPA from them
Evil Twin Molotov Lite (and Molotov Cocktail)