Lately my husband and I have been visiting breweries whenever possible, both close to home and out of town. In the past 6 months we’ve gone to New Glarus & Lakefront in Wisconsin, Lagunitas in California, and local joints in between such as Two Brothers in Illinois and Three Floyds in Indiana. Last weekend we packed up the car and headed to Kalamazoo, Michigan to visit Bell’s Brewery. We went on a tour and then proceeded to over-serve ourselves with various beers listed on the chalkboard menu. One beer in particular, the very special beer we traveled 3+ hours to have on tap, is only brewed in winter and is very hard to come by - Hopslam Ale. At 10% ABV and brewed with honey, it's a very drinkable double IPA.

At about 1:00 AM when the bartender called “last call”, I understood the true meaning behind the name "Hopslam". Luckily, we were able to get our hands on the last case of it at the general store (really, they aren’t brewing any more until next year)! Now we have plenty of it to keep us warm and fuzzy throughout the rest of winter.

Have you ever tried Hopslam? Do you think it lives up to the hype?