It's Hopslam day!

Hopslam day 2011. This is my unofficial Beer new year, since it is still my favorite brew and gives a hint as to what all beers must strive for this year.

2010 was an amazing beer year, with so many Peoples brews and a lot of other variety. Hell, even MIDLAND had a brewery open...it wasn't the one that was supposed to, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. Oberon was a little off, winter white was way off, but other beers from other companies made up for it. I'll try to update this a little more often, and include some more of my homebrew escapades.

As far as homebrewing, I'm starting to expand my technique a little bit. Still sticking with the 2 gallon Mr. Beer batches, but I'm throwing a few tricks at it. This time I brewed the Mr. Beer fall seasonal, a double american brown at 6.5%. A special recipe calls for a special trick. My trick this time was to copy People's water strategy (straight tap water through a charcoal filter), and try a 2.5 gallon kegging setup known as a Party Pig. This transformed the beer. It only had to sit in the keg/pig for a week before it was drinkable, and it gets better day by day. There is still a slight witch, but I think I left it in the fermenter for a couple days too long and it leached something from the plastic. It's still the best I've made, and after one or two, you don't notice the witch.

Now, the main attraction, Hopslam 2011.

Village Bottle Shoppe #1 had a few 6-packs left (btw, they still have 10,000, so I may need to stock up) on this, the first day of distribution. Same price as last year, $19.25 for a six pack.

Poured it into a nice clean mug. Same beautiful color as always, deep amber with hints of a harsh winter sunshine.

The smell is even smoother than last year...little less thick. It's more of a light pine forest breeze than the traditional whipping with a white pine switch. The smoothness follows through in the always delightful flavor. As is always a surprise with DIPAs, there is MALT FLAVOR!!! Oh my...some breweries act like that's a sin. But then, the smooth transfer into the complex bitterness that leaves the tongue confused as to where all this flavor came from. It then dies into a much lighter than usual stickiness that is the curse of all DIPAs.

2011 is going to be Spectacular.