With its 17.4% ABV dark chocolate power, we have to issue a Serious Booze Alert for today’s beer: this is not for the faint of heart...or liver.

17.4% ABV -- dear lord, Hoppin’ Frog!  That’s how much booze these 5-time GABF winning Dark Beer masters unleashed from their Gavel Slammer Dark Ale.  Calling to mind the sheer intensity of the Bruery’s Black Tuesday, but brewed only once in 2016, Gavel Slammer is a collector’s item in memory of a craft beer victory over Ohio’s ABV laws.  

It also shares in Tuesday’s trade-bait status -- the only place outside of some lucky beer cellars you can drink this nearly 35-proof beast in the U.S. is through Tavour.

Nearly two years chillin’ in Hoppin’ Frog’s cellar *slightly* mellows Slammer, bringing out flavors of baker’s black cocoa rise through the fire like whiskey-drenched Godiva brownies.  Will you feel the booze? Shoot, you’ll probably get tipsy from just a whiff of its cherry liqueur aromas. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

An outrageous middle finger raised to Ohio’s draconian ABV limits, Gavel Slammer is case in point why Paste calls them Hoppin’ Frog of the state’s Must Try Breweries for beers that are “big, boozy and spare no expense.”  Nothing was spared in the making of this beer -- not the ABV, the flavors, nor any craft fans’ livers.

Rated 4.15 on Untappd