Bells Hopslam

Brewed by Bells Brewery
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA

Draft at KClingers. Bright orange-yellow with a thin layer of white foam. Holy crap ... this is one of the biggest hop-fruit aromas I’ve ever experienced, almost orange-blossomy. Follows with the same flavors, big and oily, tart and tangy, like an orange soda on steroids. (#2649, 1/14/07) <<Rerated from a bottle, 2/16/08, ... same impressions! Wow!>>

Bottle. Pours an amber cloudy body with a thin clinging hop filled aroma head. Aroma is shooting out of this glass of floral hoppiness, honey, citrus fruit. Flavor is a pure hop bomb that has nice notes of honey, pine, and citrus. This is great.

Bottle - a birthday-presant for Jan (Ølbaren) from Engelsmann - thanks to both !! Unclear orange - white head. Flowery, orange, kamille, high hoppy, almost no malty taste. A clean hoppy beer - very good.

[Batch 7806] Poured a lightly hazy, copper color with a medium sized, white head that left spotty lacing on the glass. Aroma of pine, floral hops, melon, tangerine, caramel, light citrus, and honeydew. Taste of pine, toffee, resin, light dough, citrus fruits, mint leaf, and some cinnamon. Bracingly bitter, with moderate alcohol.

Murky orange color with no head. Incredible hop aroma of orange, flower and, well, hops. Duh. Wow... the taste is incredibly smooth. Tons of bitter orange hops with a little piney leftover. Oddly enough, it is not overpowering at all. Very nicely done!

2006 bottles drunk on numerous occasions in November ’06
Typical bells appearance, with light sediment on the bottom, and tiny bottle conditioned bubbles producing a lightly creamy, white head that is medium in height and retained very well, leaving clumps of lacing as it recedes. High clarity leaving the sediment behind with just a slight touch of haziness. Soft peach and honey colored body has a bit of tangerine and very light strawberry tones.
Vibrantly fruity is the nose, with luscious lychee, strawberries, sweet cherries and guavas. It tapers off teasingly in a modestly bitter, grapefruity finish that calls upon light base malt sweetness and an even more reserved caramel-like hint. The aroma smells creamy, if that’s possible. Of abundant strength and just fantastically fresh and fuzzy are the hops. Tremendous care with dry-hopping is apparent. The malt sweetness and fruitiness do not come off overbearing, though they are definitely a factor in the nose. Clean as always from Bells, but still distinctly Bells. No alcohol noted. Other things that arent noted: overdone bittering, leafy/vegetal notes, obnoxious pine resin, astringent/hard crystal malts, sourish munich malts.
Malt and hop immediately vie for power at first sip. Sweet, honey-caramel malt notes are balanced by fruity, fuzzy, fresh, green, juicy hops. Bitterness through the middle is quite reserved for a double IPA. Some dry citric notes (white grapefruit, oranges, mild lemons) consider acidifying things, but a resurgence of malt sugars right before the finish wipe them out and you’re left with more succulent hop flavors of watermelon, guava, cherry and strawberry.
To be honest, my first impression was that this wasnt bitter enough, probably the first time I’ve ever said that about an DIPA. But the extra malt sugars that come through combine nicely with the hop notes to produce all of the softer, sweeter fruit notes mentioned, so it’s not so much of a bad thing in that aspect. Just maybe a touch too sweet to drink too many of them, though DIPAs are hardly a session beer. Still, I’d be intrigued to see what a little more attenuation would produce. Soft texture with a medium-low amount of carbonation that is reasonably tight. Some hop acids and light phenolic dryness do eventually build-up and linger on the palate, with just an ever-so-slight touch of alcohol warming toward the end of the bottle, giving almost a bittersweet edge to the beer.

Thanks to my SS for this one. Pours a hazy light gold and a thin white head- slight lacing as well. Aroma is very hoppy- mostly cent and amarillo- citrusy, light pine and tropical fruits- resinous. Nice hoppy flavor, decent malt backbone, but you can notice the alcohol come through esp on warming- fruity, and solvent-like. Finishes relatively bitter and somewhat sticky= not as dry as some west coast expamples. Pretty good DIPA, but the aroma gets your hopes too high.

Bottle shared by MikeTD - thanks! (ZBF2008) (sip)
Gold, thin head. Citrus and apricot aroma, some peach. Sweet body. The taste is very hoppy, but they are very well balanced hops, and the rich malty body melds very well. I’m not normally a hop bomb kind of person, but this worked very well. The finish was quite peppery. Very pleasant.