Hopslam 2012!

So. Today may have been the best day of my graduate career. I have been bouncing off the walls since about 3 pm, and down right giddy since 5:15. For the first time, I saw ions doing the entire experiment that I have spent 3 years attempting. This project has been plagued with bad luck and misfortune from the very beginning, and the ICIS@Purdue crew is now poised to collect the benefits of never giving up, of relishing the smallest of victories and persevering the worst of setbacks. Of the $300K I was trusted with to build this thing, there is $8K left, and I think we may have finally done it.

I went to People's tonight in a celebratory mood, had a few beers and came home. I then became aware (through Sean) that VBS on 52 had hopslam, and the other VBS's would have it tomorrow. I drove through the driving snow storm to acquire said gem...got to campus just as the basketball game finished. Diverted through the side (unplowed) roads of West Lafayette because I didn't have enough gas to sit in the traffic. 45 minutes after I left, I came upon the VBS and bought hopslam. It's been in my trunk as I had a celebratory cigar (and Manhattan) with my right hand man in this ICIS project. Finally I sit back at home with a cold Hopslam in an Oberon Summer 2011 glass.

This is perhaps the most special glass of liquid I will ever consume...with the significance of this day.

This bottle is part of batch 10846 and was packaged on 1/06/2012. That is (now) only one week ago! This is the freshest of the fresh, besides those bottles which have been consumed by fellow Lafayette Beer Geeks. This is the freshest Hopslam I have ever consumed. And it is good. The smell is cleaner than I remember, not abusive, not sappy, not anything overwhelming. The flavor is the same as I originally fell in love with all those years ago in my dorm room at MSU. So freakin' smooth. I'm sorry Sean and Chris and Abel, but Hopslam this fresh just took back the #1 spot in my book away from Space Cowboy. This beer is an epic brew, and I think this staggered release (as unintentional as it was) may have been the best thing to ever happen to this beer.

As always, I consider the first bottle of hopslam to be the beginning of a "new beer year." Besides Sierra Nevada's Celebration (which is unapologetically not balanced at all), this is one of the first serious beers using the new harvest of hops. Since a vast majority of American hops come from the same region (Yakima and Willamette valleys in WA) and are harvested once a year, and considering that the nature of hops are dependent on their growing conditions, and finally taking into consideration that the hop harvest is in the fall, these early beers do indeed lend an indication to the nature of hoppy beers to come for the whole year. That sentence (I just wrote) is awful, but the short story is that between Celebration and Hopslam, midwesterners can get an idea of what the year will have to offer for big, hoppy beers. And this year promises to be great. (Yes I know that Sierra Nevada is not a midwestern brewery...but nationwide Celebration is one of the first beers available from the fresh hop harvest)

I cannot believe how awesome today has been. Getting the full experiment (minus lasers) to work, enjoying the support of everyone I work with in both of my research groups (a lot of grad students can barely enjoy the company of the people in their own group, nonetheless two groups), enjoying a quality cigar and cocktail with the only group member to be there with me the entire time, convincing the new student who will replace me that she didn't make a poor life decision to join this project (since all she's seen so far is 6 months of fail), and to top it off with a bottle or two (or three) of the best beer known to man. Today is an epic day that has been enjoyed with epic friends and topped off with an epic beer.

-James