It’s January, that must mean it’s time for the oft sought after hop lover’s delight known as Bell’s Hopslam.

I know the rush is on to try and find it around town, so I thought I’d provide a small list that I know currently has it available.  If I’m missing something, please let me know in the comments and I’ll add it to this list:

Retail:

• Lukas Liquor
• Starr’s Market
• Friar Tuck Crestwood
• Friar Tuck Gravois Bluffs
• Wine and Cheese Place (All locations)
• Provisions Market
• Whole Foods Brentwood
• Whole Foods Town and Country
• Randall’s (St. Louis)

Bars/Restaurants:

• 33 Wine Bar (Draught)
• International Tap House (Draught – Taps 1/15 at 5PM)
• The Stable (Draught – Not sure when it’s being tapped)

As we walked downstairs after the Hopslam cask at The Stable had been extinguished (in under an hour) two gentlemen at the bottom of the stairs noticed the “Hopslam Cask Party” sign and gave each other a surprised look of, “Can this really be?”  It was my unfortunate duty to inform them that it was already all gone.  They missed out on this special opportunity.  But luckily for about 60 people, they had a chance to try something very special.

What was my final verdict?  I’m certainly glad I tried it and would absolutely try it again, but I don’t know.  This may bring out the villagers with their pitchforks, but I think I prefer Hopslam draught over a cask.  While the beer had plenty of aroma, it seemed to be missing something in the cask.  I was missing that fruity effervescence of the carbonation for this one.  Maybe I just love IPAs on cask and not Double IPAs?  Not sure, must do more investigations!

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Oh, you heard me right.  First we got a cask of Two Hearted at 33 Wine Bar.  Then we received a cask of Mad Hatter IPA at Cicero’s.  And now, on February 27th at The Stable, we’re going to see a cask of the one, the only, Hopslam.

Stable Beverage Manager Jerad Gardner and Bell’s Jim O’Conner have worked tirelessly to secure a single cask of Hopslam for us beer nerds in St. Louis. Jim will begin pouring this beer into Bell’s tulip glasses at 6PM.  Just a word of advice, if the Two Hearted cask is any idea of how fast this will go, I would show up at 6PM for this beer.

Thanks to Jerad and Jim for putting on this very special event.

Paul from the Wine and Cheese Place for alerting me that Bell’s seasonal Hopslam is now available at his Forsyth store. It’s a limited release this year, so all of you lupulus lovers better get some quick because you know this one will be sure to go fast.

Here’s a quick commercial description:

A biting, bitter, tongue bruiser of an ale. With a name like Hopslam, what did you expect? O.G.: 1.095, IBUs: 70, 10%ABV

If you can’t make it out to Wine and Cheese, I would call your favorite retailer to see if it’s available.  Good luck and good drinking!

Hope you didn’t have plans for tonight, because I just Jerad Gardner at The Stable,  Jerad just called to inform me that thanks to a plucky sales person over at everyone’s favorite local distributor, Glazer’s, he’ll have the eagerly anticipated Bell’s beer, Hopslam.

The beer will begin pouring about 8PM this evening, so head on down and get yourself a glass of this once a year beer.

Just an update on some of my brewing from over the past few weekends.

• Brewed the Two Hearted Clone last Saturday.
  • OG finished a little lower than I would have liked, but nothing terrible at 1.062 (was shooting for 1.065)
  • Lag time of about 8 hours. Also added 8 drops of FermCap to keep down on the krausen.
  • Dry hopped with 2oz of Centennial hops this weekend and moved into the closest for one week on the hops.
• Moved the Pliny the Elder (Imperial IPA) clone from a carboy into a bright keg.
  • Unfortunately the pelletized hops clogged up my ball lock, so I had to just open the keg and rack it in.
  • Finished out at 1.014 from an OG of 1.088. I tasted it and was quite impressed. I had the girlfriend taste it and she said even at this point, it’s better than Hopslam.
  • Noticed a bit of fusel alcohol aroma as it warmed. Hopefully some of this will age off a bit.
• Brought the Mango Blonde down to 37° last weekend.
  • Transfered to bright keg this weekend and added 6lbs of mango. Looking back at it though, should not have moved this into the bright tank. I think I’ll just swap dip tubes.
  • Also, fitting 6lbs of mango into the keg lost me about a gallon of beer. Not a big deal.
• Chilled and carbonated the La Fin Du Monde clone.
• Bottled 20 bottles of my Oatmeal Stout and 14 Bottles of the Southern English Brown. Dumped the rest of the Oatmeal Stout.
  • Had a lot of foaming with the Oatmeal Stout, I think it was due to the keg being warm.

This weekend I tackled a Raspberry Wheat beer. 47.9% Pils, 47.9% White Wheat and 4.3% Crystal 15. One additional of Willamette at 60 minutes to bring it to 18 IBUs. I’ll add 3lbs of raspberry puree after primary fermentation has ceased.

I also did overnight mash for this beer. I’m trying to avoid brewing on Sundays and thanks to the awesome Repeal of Prohibition festival I was busy Saturday afternoon. So I began my mash right before heading for dinner on Friday night, came home and brought the temperature up to 174 with my heatstick and left it overnight. I woke up early on Saturday morning and began heating my sparge water. The temp on the mash dropped to 153 overnight, so I used the heatstick to bring it back up to 170. Did my sparge and then boiled. I was hoping this would make a 6 hour brew day only 3-4 hour day, but thanks to a 90 minute boil it was closer to 4.5-5 hours. Still made for an interesting experiment.

Oh, this was also my 6th batch in 6 weeks. Whew. Talking a Belgian Wit this weekend and then taking off a few weeks from brewing. I’m sure it’ll make Irene happy.

Thanks to Paul from the Wine and Cheese Place for alerting me.  Bell’s seasonal Hopslam will be available tomorrow in St. Louis.  Only 60 cases have arrived in St. Louis, so all of you lupulus lovers better get some quick because you know this one will be sure to go fast.

Here’s a quick commercial description:

A biting, bitter, tongue bruiser of an ale. With a name like Hopslam, what did you expect? O.G.: 1.095, IBUs: 70, 10%ABV