Comments on: Hopslam: Overrated?

By: Limited Time Offer! Overrated beers by Billy Broas | Thank Heaven for Beer

Limited Time Offer! Overrated beers by Billy Broas | Thank Heaven for Beer — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:59:23 +0000

[...] wrote a great post about the topic where he says [...]

By: Billy Broas

Billy Broas — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:13:12 +0000

How did I miss this post? Especially when I was mentioned? Oh well here I am late to the party as usual.

Needless to say, I think that HopSlam is a fantastic beer but is overrated due to the buildup and scarcity. As hard as we try to be unbiased and only judge a beer for its taste, we can’t help but get swayed by pretty packaging, an attractive story, or a limited release schedule. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but something we should be aware of when it is happening.

Thanks for writing this Nate.

By: beer_scientist

beer_scientist — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:06:45 +0000

Please crash it. Please! It’s like all of are saying…there’s no reason to miss an entire world of beer by being obsessed with one. I’ve got a good friend who flips over Pliny. He’s entitled to it and I tell him when I see some but I’m not buying too much, except for a couple bottles (even though they told me not to).

By: Kevin M

Kevin M — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:46:49 +0000

For me, anything with Pliny or Slam are pretty over-rated. While they are good, I just don’t think they live up to all the hype–especially the “I’ll steamroll over little old ladies just to make sure I get a bottle” kind of hype. A lot of these “brewery only” line-waiting all morning beers are a lot of hype, too, and many rarely deliver. There are exceptions, but they’re becoming few and far between.

Oh, if I see one more forum post on BA about PtY vs HopSlam, I’m going to find a hacker to crash the server! HAHAHA!

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:32:42 +0000

I have to agree that Hopslam is overrated but a very good beer. We had a hell of a time even getting it this year (didn’t get it at all last year). The local Bell’s distributor forgot to order it so it was looking like we were going to get none until the distributor north of our area cut a deal to give some as long as they picked it up. I got my hands on some and enjoyed it (review coming soon!) but I still prefer some other DIPAs over this.

By: nate

nate — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:50:55 +0000

Thanks for all the comments guys…wish I could respond to them all, but i don’t think that would be cool with my boss.

@don…i’m with you on the celebration ale. I bought it once and didn’t buy it again.

A quick note to all…I misquoted the dude mentioned in the article. He brought it to my attention. In my haste to write this on my lunch break I didn’t cross reference my source and should have. A good lesson to me to be more careful, no matter how op ed this thing is. Regardless, the error is fixed. While the revision in no way changed the content of this post, sorry for the error!

By: beer_scientist

beer_scientist — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:41:51 +0000

@Don. Maybe when we do finally get together it will be epic. I’m going to bring back some good beer when I visit Indy. I’ll be bringing back a bit of Hopslam, so I’ll have to venture up there with it. I don’t understand the Celebration either. Bigfoot is the hot one now.

By: beer_scientist

beer_scientist — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:40:05 +0000

@Big Tex. I’ve given Sam Adams some good ratings. I like Utopias, Imperial White, and their Black lager. Some of their beers I give bad ratings. Coastal Wheat comes to mind here. I didn’t care for their Imperial Stout or Double Bock. Chocolate bock got some good ratings. I think they are more of a mixed bag for us. Nate wrote this a while back. http://thankheavenforbeer.com/2009/08/25/whats-going-on-here/. I’d say we run about 60/40 on them (60 good and 40 not so good). Of course, even within this Nate and I disagree a bit. Again, this shows some of the subjectivity.

By: don

don — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:34:17 +0000

Lots of good traffic on this post Nate. I’d just like to try Hopslam. Can’t get it out here. On the flip side there are a lot of really good brews that go largely unnoticed because for whatever reason they can’t achieve the type of cult following that many of the biggys do like PTE or PTY. I also agree that limited releases get lots and lots of attention. One I have had that I didn’t understand all the hoopla was Sierra Nevada’s Celebration ale. Its good, but people go nuts over the stuff. I haven’t figured that out yet.

By: Big Tex

Big Tex — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:30:21 +0000

Bells ins’t easily available around here, if at all. That said, I will echo the opinion of Pliny the Elder being overrated. There are much better Imperial IPA’s that come to mind. Pliny was a bit harsh on my palate. Frankly, Rogue and Deschutes have beers in this category that offer a more balanced flavor.

To the other question, what beers I find overrated… the first one that came to mind was Samuel Adams. I know they get good reviews from lots of folks, including this site. My impression is that their beers tend towards harshness on my palate.

In the end… much of it is rather subjective, eh?