Friday, January 21, 2011

Hop Slam Weekend

Had a big coup this week - my spouse was following the Tower Liquors blog while I was in a seminar and found out they got some Bells HopSlam in this Tuesday. I was able to swing by and get a mini keg PLUS their last 6-pack. I even gave one bottle to their beer manager so he could try it out. He said when there is such a buzz, he feels bad reserving some for himself. How awesome is that?? I'm going to email him to see if he liked it or not. I'm thinking definitely.

We were also lucky enough to get on the Green's wait list, so we got another case of HopSlam, too. Don't worry, I'm planning on sharing the wealth with a few coworkers and friends over the next week.

Anywho, what we did Thursday was we had a HopSlam tasting. We had saved a bottle of 2010 HopSlam and "blind tasted" it against a HopSlam 2011 and a Port WipeOut. I correctly identified them all (and I must say the Port WipeOut was great, but not a double IPA so it was kind of unfair to it). But I was able to confirm two things about the HopSlam: 1) that IPAs indeed to not age well, but also that 2) the 2011 is even better than the 2010. The 2011's well balanced fruity strawberry grapefruit smell gives it a BA 5.0 in my mind, and the taste has a great hop citrus zing with citrus fruit juice and peppery spice on the tounge. Incredible, and worth the trouble and cost.

Tonight I'm drinking a Yuengling Porter, which was tough to come by here in Georgia, but is full of nostalgia for me and is just as good as I remember. Maybe even better. On to make dinner and add some reviews later on whatever else I get to. A coworker gave me some of his homebrewed ale, and I'm looking forward to trying it out!

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