Bell's I: Song of Myself Review

Name: Bell’s I: Song of Myself
Style: India Pale Ale
ABV: 6.5%
IBUs: N/A

A few years back, Bell’s Brewery released a series of seven beers based on Gustav Holst’s musical composition “The Planets,” with each beer taking a name from each of the musical sections. It was a fantastic series and produced some of the best beers that I’ve ever had to pleasure of trying out. Needless to say, I was somewhat heartbroken when it ended and I even wondered if Bell’s would try something like this again.

Well, that question now has an answer as Bell’s has unleashed upon us “Leaves of Grass,” a series of seven beers based on the Walt Whitman book/poetry collection of the same name. I know next to nothing about Walt Whitman aside from the fact that he’s a famous poet from the 19th century and that he wrote stuff. In fact, the first time I had heard the name “Walt Whitman” was from The Simpson’s episode where Homer tries to find his mother and instead discovers the headstone of Walt Whitman and proceeds to assail it while proclaiming his hate for the writer and even mentions Leaves of Grass in the process. I’ll post it below….

Now that we got that out of our system, it’s time to take a look at the first beer in the series: Song of Myself. From what the label tells me, it’s a German-Style IPA and is made with hops and malts that are 100% German in origin.

Appearance – Hazy dark yellow color with a lot of visible carbonation. The head itself is pretty thing but there’s a healthy amount of lacing left along the sides of the glass.

Aroma – Strong toffee and caramel malts dominate most of the nose but some potent bitter hops lurking underneath.

Taste – Flavor-wise, it’s a mirror image of the nose. Throughout the palate you have strong toffee and caramel maltiness with a fairly strong bitter hoppiness on the back with a lingering resin aftertaste.

I’ve had a few “German-Inspired” IPAs before and this is definitely one of the more meltier ones that I’ve had. That said, I enjoyed this. It might be a more bitter IPA, which’ll turn off some people, but the malts used more than help balance this beer out. I’m looking forward to seeing what else this series will have to offer and hope to check them all out.