Belt’s Beer Garden: Wish I had S’more For You

This week I ran out of time and only have one beer for you...but it’s a really intriguing beer (if that makes up for it any...)

Have you ever seen something so weird, so crazy, so out of the ordinary that you just had to try it? Well that’s exactly how I found myself feeling when I saw Omnipollo’s first canned beer, Shploing!!.

Just a quick recap of Omnipollo – they are one of Sweden’s biggest and most well known breweries and have been around since 2011. But, like most European breweries seem to be, they are a phantom brewery, so they don’t have a set location and brew at other breweries instead (like this beer comes from Boston, MA).

But what is Shploing!!?

Shploing!! is a mango s’mores IPA…you read that right. It’s an IPA brewed with mango, vanilla, marshmallow fluff, graham crackers, rock salt and lactose sugar. Whoa…this could be great or it could be terrible. And I wanted…no, I NEEDED to find out…so even though the 12-ounce can cost $4.50 (or a four pack for $15), I handed the cashier my money almost instantly.

When I poured it from the can I was surprised at how bright it was. Shploing!! was a golden straw color with about a finger of pure white head topping it. The foam quickly faded down into a light dusting across the top and a small ring around the edge. Inside there was a vast amount of sediment floating aimlessly.

On the nose there were huge mango notes but not much from the smores came out. The lactose added some sweetness to the aroma and the malt and graham crackers created a somewhat bready, lightly toasted, scent. Sadly, the marshmallow and chocolate seemed to be hidden behind everything else. That being said, it still smelled like a really good but seemed like a simple fruit IPA.

I was hoping for more to come out in the taste.

On my first sip, there was a moderate about of carbonation that fizzled on my tongue before the flavors came out. As with the aroma, it was once again the mango that led the way; with a slightly, bitter hop bite following suit.

Following the fruit there was a blend of flavors but none of which seemed to scream smores to me. There were hints of chocolaty sweetness and toasted marshmallows on some sip but, for the most part, the ingredients that popped the most was the mango.

Towards the backend, there was a touch of vanilla sweetness that was complimented by both the lactose and the salt. It made Shploing!! end on the smoother side but it did have a lingering acidic (not hoppy) bitterness.

At 7% ABV it’s surprisingly high in alcohol, which you’d never guess from the taste – as there was no hint of booze at all.

All in all though, I was slightly disappointed in Shploing!!. The smores aspect was very limited and instead it was basically a mango IPA with lactose and salt added. But, as a stand-alone fruit IPA, it was really good. So I’m conflicted. Wish there was more of the smores aspect but it still had great flavors.