brew dog blog

On a trip out to the west coast a few months back, I firmly and finally fell in love with the insanity of American IPA and DIPA styles.  Green Flash’s “West Coast IPA” was my first love, and since then, I’ve tried to sample as many examples of the style as possible.  Two of these that I have sought heavily since then, as they are so well renowned, are Bell’s “Hopslam” and Port Brewing’s “Hop 15,” both American Double IPAs.  Ceeg gripped a Hop 15 at The Foodery and was nice enough to share, and an amazing Beer Advocate trader sent me a Hopslam as an extra in a larger trade.  Thankfully I was smart enough to not drink these at the same time, because they both completely destroy your tongue, but boy were they both super satisfying.  Here’s some notes on each.

I shared the Hopslam with Stinky during a small tasting session we had while my wife was out of town.  He was just as excited as I was by this beer, never having tried it before, and neither of us were disappointed.  I didn’t know that the brew was made with honey, a very welcome addition to the beer which gave it a certain sense of balance which is often missing from these insanely Hoppy beers.  No, I’m not looking for a “well-balanced” beer in any traditional sense, but it’s nice to see this nod toward balancing sweetness with bitterness.  Hopslam has a really great heavy Hops aroma which manages to let some of the honey smells come through as well.  It pours a beautiful color, and really just gave us everything we were looking for.  Great carbonation, perfect amount of floral, citrus, and a bit of piney hop flavor.  Bell’s is a truly incredible brewery and I’m going to do my best to taste everything they make.  Hopslam retains a sense of restraint relative to the next beer I’m going to write about, which seems to be true for most of their beers.  They’re crafting exemplary brews for their style, which are typically very drinkable.  I could kill a few Hopslams and be stoked.  Nothing challenging there.

Hop 15 portrays fighter jets air-bombing Hop flowers into a pint glass, as a nice contrast to the Hopslam label which shows a poor schmuck getting decimated…by a giant Hop flower.  Hop 15 is an incredible West Coast DIPA on the order of the Green Flash Imperial IPA — over the top, intense, and unforgiving.  A little bit thin but still incredibly drinkable, Hop 15 stayed on my tongue for a full hour after I drank it.  This beer represents a great achievement — definitely the kind of beer that could inspire a European brewer to experiment with some of these “newfangled” American Hop Varietals.  Hop 15 is all about the Pine, and it really clobbers you.  Drink this beer first if you don’t want to taste anything else, or last if you want to pass out feeling like you were sucking on a pinecone.  This is just an incredibly drinkable beer for its ABV and hops intensity, and like the other Port beers I tried, it lived up to its expectations.  Very excited to get into more of their brews as well.