UPDATE: Nice. About an hour after this hit the front page, Bell’s released official information.
(Kalamazoo, MI) – Bell’s Hopslam season is almost here but when exactly?
A message on the Bell’s Brewery homepage reads, “Hopslam will be released in January. More details to come.”
According to The Wine and Cheese Place blog, that is only half of the story though.
Bell’s has an official release date of February 8th this year for package. A little later than usual due to the hops arriving later. They said the draft will arrive a little sooner.
This information jibes with speculation on Beer Advocate.
In the past couple years, the beer was released during the second week of January. Bummer.
But how is this for strange…
The Batch Finder reveals that Bell’s packaged three batches of Hopslam beginning last week.
I looked back at last year’s batches around this time of year and couldn’t find any Hopslam packaged in December. The first batches appeared to have been packaged during the first week of January which would mean the turnaround time from packaging to release was only a week or so if not less.
Is it possible that the brewery is planning to release kegs imminently?
Also, for good measure, some other recent ‘packaged’ batches of note:
Bell’s The Wild One: December 21st
Bell’s Rye Stout: November 30th
Bell’s Rye-ghteous Rye Whiskey Barrel Aged Ale: November 2nd
I had bottles of hopslam that were packaged at the end of 2010.
I hope its not 32$/6-pack around me again this year.
*cough* Southampton Beer Store *cough*
Hi Sam, I don’t suppose you have those bottles lying around with batch numbers do you?
isn’t hopslam bottle conditioned? that would explain packaging it now, so that it will have time to condition before release….. OTOH, maybe these are small run test batches, or are going overseas.
If the former is the case then that *should* be consistent with prior years. Package in late November and release in early January. Except that I couldn’t find any packaged before January. Three test batches seems like a lot. Can’t explain it!
“This information jives with speculation on Beer Advocate.”
Do you mean that the information performs a rock & roll dance popular in the 1950s, or that it speaks in slang?
Or do you mean “jibe?”
Great catch. Just learning English over here.
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