The Race To Beer With 50% Alcohol By Volume 297
ElectricSteve writes "Most of the world's beer has between 4% and 6% alcohol by volume (ABV). The strength of beer achieved by traditional fermentation brewing methods has limits, but a well-crafted beer that is repeatedly 'freeze distilled' can achieve exquisite qualities and much higher alcohol concentrations. An escalation in the use of this relatively new methodology over the last 12 months has seen man's favorite beverage suddenly move into the 40+% ABV realm of spirits such as gin, rum, brandy, whiskey, and vodka, creating a new category of extreme beer. The world's strongest beer was 27% ABV, but amidst an informal contest to claim the title of the world's strongest beer, the top beer has jumped in strength dramatically. This week Gizmag spoke to the brewers at the center of the escalating competition. New contestants are gathering, and the race is now on to break 50% alcohol by volume."
After a hard days work (Score:2)
After a hard days work, we know what high frequency traders drink...
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A vitamin rich sludge to help their skin maintain its healthy slime. But what does that have to do with beer?
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I work in the high-frequency trading business. Our office fridge contains:
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Fairly sure it'd be pretty hard to smoke beer. What are you smoking?
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Fairly sure it'd be pretty hard to smoke beer.
Rauchbier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoked_beer [wikipedia.org]
It's not an everyday sort of beer, but goes great with some meals.
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I recently shared a Rauchbier (literally smoke beer in German) with friends just to try it - in fact, I had the Bamberg pictured in that link. The consensus was it was a strange tasting beer with lingering flavors of smoked bacon, which is a bit too odd of a combo for me. I've had an Eisbock (literally Ice Bock and Bock is a place - it is derived from Einbeck, where the style was first brewed) before, but it was more in the 18% ABV range and a bit bitter for my tastes, but the India Pale Ale fan of my fri
But what about taste? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Yes. Because no one drinks Whiskey, or Rye. Try drinking that stuff, straight up no junk. Tell me how awesome it tastes. Then ask if it sells.
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On the other hand, the fact that the essentially tasteless but cheap macrobrews are so popular lead
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There are a number of high ABV beers out there that ARE good.
The obvious one to me is Three Philosophers, which is made by Ommegang, a NY based Belgian brewery. It's about 10% ABV iirc, and very good. Most of Ommegang's beers are relatively high ABV, yet still good.
I think I have also had something up to 16% ABV that I liked (can't remember the name currently), and I have also had plenty of high test beers that sucked, probably about in proportion to normal beers that suck though.
That being said, I have n
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It's not pointless at all! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey, maybe you weren't into it. I can understand. It's hot outside and I want my beer relatively light.. right now.
But the thing about beer is that higher alcohol tends to result in more flavor. Not counting freeze distillation (the topic here), or tasteless adjuncts (e.g. rice syrup), the way to pump up a beer's alcohol is to add more malt. That means more malt flavor, and sometimes malt flavor can be damn damn good. Try some doppelbocks or English barleywines.
Then it gets more complex, because if you
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we drank plenty of Everclear, we'd take shots and chase it with Boone's
jesus, you started with something tough and ended with the dainty beverage of snow-white queens.
what then, scotch with a zima chaser? rye followed by a cosmo?
Re:But what about taste? (Score:5, Informative)
Back in my university days, I made homebrew in residence to save money. Then I taught the other guys on my floor how to make it, and loaned them my equipment, leading to a peak production of 70 dozen beer per week on our floor. You wanna bet the women liked partying on OUR floor. :)
Personally, I don't think you can call what these guys are making beer.
Soaking it in whiskey barrels, for example... cheating. People buy those barrels and fill them with water, then let the alcohol soak out of them and drink it... they call it swish. Not just adding "flavour" with those barrels.
Using fractional freezing techniques to make it stronger is about as novel as leaving your apple cider out in the snow and separating the frozen stuff out. Personally, I wouldn't call it "beer" either after it's been treated this way.
I can see why it's expensive though. Each time you freeze and filter it, the concentration of alcohol in the frozen material increases, until you're just throwing away alcohol and not concentrating it at all. So, making one of those super strong ice hardened beers involves a large amount of waste, assuming you're not taking the "ice" and firing it into a conventional still to recover the loss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_freezing [wikipedia.org]
We're getting ready to do it ourselves here at home, because operating a still is illegal, but freezing your wine isn't. We're using champagne yeast, apple juice, grape juice, blackberry juice, blueberry juice, dextrose and honey.
I almost broke the world record for strongest beer back the 80s... did my junior high school science fair project on brewing, and made an IPA that was 11.5% at a time when the record was 12%. Wish I'd been allowed to drink it :P
I should make a beer using starch as an adsorbent. Call it Beershine or something.
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erm ... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:erm ... (Score:4, Informative)
I was about to say the same things - once you distill it, it's no longer beer.
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And still, (rimshot) freeze-distilled beer is nothing like whisky. Whisky is brewed without hops, as you probably know. This is just regular beer that's been concentrated by having the water removed.
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No kidding. (Score:2)
Once you distill beer to achieve higher alcohol content, it's... not beer anymore. This is freaking ridiculous.
Hooch (Score:4, Informative)
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My understanding is that Utopias is an actual beer and is not distilled like the "beers" discussed in the article. It is also only stored in whiskey barrels for less than a year. However, I've also heard that it tastes awful. One of the things that normally classifies a drink as a beer is that it is a result of fermentation without distilling of the end product, just like wine. Once you distill a beer, IMHO, you get liquor.
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This site [foodgps.com] says that it takes about 18 months, but that they blend in other beers dating back to 1994 ...
How long do you ferment?
It’s 18 months, but we blend in barrel stock going back to Triple Bock, so 1994....It’s a blend of really old and about 18 months.
So, I guess in a way, some small percentage of Utopias is 16 years old and counting, but the bulk of it is only 1.5 years old at bottling.
Is this really beer (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it hard to believe that this could be brewed naturally, i.e. using yeast to ferment the liquor. I find it hard to believe that a yeast can live in 50% alcohol, 27% was really pushing the limits.
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That's called "whiskey".
Re:Is this really beer (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Is this really beer (Score:5, Informative)
If you freeze distill it, then it stops being beer in my book.
Same here, but unfortunately the EU has forced us here in Germany to lower our standards so that people may call it "beer" even if it hasn't been made according to the Reinheitsgebot [wikipedia.org]. In fact, such beverages have been around for quite some time under the name Bierschnaps.
Oh, and if you're interest in fancy drinks, you should try to get a Kehlenschneider. 80% ABV and 400,000 Scoville units. Which means you won't even notice the alcohol in it.
Re:Is this really beer (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't think Germans were still allowed to enforce 'purity laws'.
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As a brewer, there are certain flavors you can bring out by freeze distilling. I personally am not a fan of barley wines and higher ABV beers, but there are many people who love the flavor. Once you get into the brew world you start seeing some really obsessive behavior in the types of beer brewed and products used. Personally, I try to lower my ABV and keep the taste, which is really difficult...
However, in this case it is more of a "can
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Except for the addition of hops and the lack of aging in a suitable barrel, this high alcohol content beer is ... wait for it ... whiskey.
Maximum alcohol content via fermentation alone is on the order of 10-15%, after which the yeast tend to die. Higher concentrations are achieved by distillation.
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Ummmm .... in the second sentence of the summary it says 'freeze distilled'. It's not like you actually had to go and read an article or anything.
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Nope. (Score:2)
Real beer is not in the "Distilled class". To high percentages of alcohol would kill the fermentation organisms. That is why alcoholic substances are distilled after the fermentation to obtain higher alcohol percentages.
Like beer, fermented grain is the basis for Whiskey. So, as others pointed out, "distilled beer" is not a wrong term for Whiskey.
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Real beer is not in the "Distilled class". To high percentages of alcohol would kill the fermentation organisms. That is why alcoholic substances are distilled after the fermentation to obtain higher alcohol percentages.
Like beer, fermented grain is the basis for Whiskey. So, as others pointed out, "distilled beer" is not a wrong term for Whiskey.
OK, to be really picky... fermented grain is the basis for ale. Beer is ale flavoured with hops. Whisky is not flavoured with hops, and is therefore distilled ale, not distilled beer. So we still don't have a name for distilled beer, unless you call it 'hop flavoured whisky'.
Redants'R'Us
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Is this really beer?
I find it hard to believe that this could be brewed naturally, i.e. using yeast to ferment the liquor. I find it hard to believe that a yeast can live in 50% alcohol, 27% was really pushing the limits.
How is this marked insightful when it is nothing but ignorant? The poster could not possibly have read the article because if they had, they would realize that it isn't beer straight out of the fermenter, but rather beer processed to extract and therefore concentrate the alcohol and most everything else. The interesting part is that freezing the beer to extract water is hard: you need to chill the beer to just the right temperature for just the right amount of time so that the ice crystals are just the ri
Re:Is this really beer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is this really beer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is this really beer (Score:5, Informative)
It's whisky. Just because it's distilled by freezing instead of heating the principle is the same hence the term 'distilling'. Temperature differences are being used to remove water.
Distillation is a separation by difference in volatility (or vapor pressure). The more volatile component will be present in the vapor phase in a higher concentration than the other stuff when you boil the liquid.
The process here is called crystallization, and has very little to do with distillation, except that it also is used in a separation. Also, there is no temperature difference - it's just cold. The temperature of the entire barrel of beer-like-booze will gradually drop, but there is no temperature difference like in a distillation process where the temperature of the boiling liquid differs from the condensing vapors.
While you scoop out more ice, the temperature drops (as a function of alcohol content in the liquid). So, the liquid will cool down more over time... but there is no requirement to have a temperature difference unless you're afraid that the ice won't melt and go down the sink.
Whiskey is the condensed gas phase of the beer and you throw away the liquid residue.
In this process the good stuff never left the liquid phase. You throw away the ice.
Anyway, we've entered a discussion where we disagree on definitions. I'll give you the point that this may not be beer, but it certainly isn't whiskey either.
If you disagree with me on the distillation part, you can also change the text on wikipedia (types of distillation, subsection "other types", subsubsection "stuff that isn't really distillation").
Freeze distillation is an analogous method of purification using freezing instead of evaporation. It is not truly distillation, but a recrystallization where the product is the mother liquor, and does not produce products equivalent to distillation. This process is used in the production of ice beer and ice wine to increase ethanol and sugar content, respectively. It is also used to produce applejack. Unlike distillation, freeze distillation concentrates poisonous congeners rather than removing them.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation#Other_types [wikipedia.org] )
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More Alcohol and Less Drinking? (Score:5, Insightful)
I like beer. I like drinking beer. I like drinking a variety of beers. I don't like being falling down drunk. This race for higher alcohol content seems pointless and just limits the amount you can enjoy in one sitting.
Re:More Alcohol and Less Drinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems strange to me, making beer so strong. What are they trying to achieve with this? A 50% beer means you can only have a few measures of it before you will get sick. Where is the enjoyment? A pint of cold, crisp draught surely beats a shot of this stuff?
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Have you tried Kaliber by Guinness? It is a NA that is actually like a real beer...
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Re:More Alcohol and Less Drinking? (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems strange to me, making beer so strong. What are they trying to achieve with this? A 50% beer means you can only have a few measures of it before you will get sick. Where is the enjoyment? A pint of cold, crisp draught surely beats a shot of this stuff?
It's the same reason some people wait half a day, then strap themselves into a jet powered bomb on wheels to do a quarter mile really really fast.
It's not the most practical or the most comfortable way of traveling... but I guess it's just really really cool.
I can completely understand why they make this beer.
However, I would not understand why someone would drink more than a shot glass of it though. I fully agree that there are few (perhaps none at all) drinks that are better than a simple cold normal beer. And the best part of a simple cold normal beer is that you can have more than one. Yay.
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I spent a year in Europe 23 years ago, and I always liked EKU 28, which was billed as the "strongest beer in the world." Kind of sweet, malty, with hints of cherry (not cherry-flavored, of course.) It's not widely available in the states, but now one can find Belgian triples and doppelbocks and other stronger brews, and I really like those too. The goal to reach 50 percent alcohol seems kind of artificial, like a running race that is 26.2 miles long. I guess the point is to push the limits, and maybe be
Re:More Alcohol and Less Drinking? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. The quality and enjoyability of the beer is not determined by the percentage of alcohol. If this kind of mindless "mines bigger than yours" appeals to you then why not buy a bottle of 100% distilled medical alcohol and pour it straight down your throat?
Woohoo! It's a hundred percent! You can't get bigger! You win! Now bring over the stomach pumps.
The same macho BS that goes on about curry strengths. People competitively eat the strongest curry they can get hold off, to the point of it knocking your taste buds into a coma. Well done. Now you can't taste anything and you're oozing curry paste from every duct and pore you possess. You win.
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I hate beer. I hate drinking beer. I hate the taste of beer. The only reason I drink is socially and that is to loosen me up so I'm not a wallflower. I'd *prefer* to just drink shots of Tequila because it does a better job, quicker, without making me feel bloated like beer does, but for some reason at neighborhood gatherings nobody really breaks out the "hard" alcohol, the just sit around like pansies drinking Bud Lite and Miller Lite... horse piss IMHO.
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I've never tasted horse piss, so I'll have to take your word for it.
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Indeed. Compare this silly race to the apparent contest of "whose beer can be the hoppiest?". Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Traditional IPAs are hoppy enough, but then you get Bell's Two-Hearted Ale (which I do like), then Hopalicious (New Glarus, I think) and others. They get kind of crazy.
Legal warning (Score:2)
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How can there be a 'race to 50%'? (Score:2)
It's distilled ... you can make it as strong as you like, no magic needed.
Methanol (Score:2)
One problem with freeze distillation is that it doesn't get rid of methanol. How are they getting around this problem?
Re:Methanol (Score:4, Funny)
Putting "Not for human consumption" on the bottles?
Realistically, though... (Score:4, Informative)
Methanol in Prohibition-era hootch was present as an adulterant - in other words, it was deliberately added to bathtub gin because it was cheap, and the producers didn't particularly care about their customers' health. Much like melamine was added to various Chinese products to make them appear more protein-rich.
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You mean the same methanol that was in the normal beer to begin with?
But in far lower concentrations. i.e. 1 pint of normal beer would contain far less methanol than 1 pint of distilled beer.
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> One reason for actual home distilling being illegal is the fire risk.
And the possibility of making commercial quantities that evade the taxing authorities has NOTHING to do with it. Everyone knows that the military response to the Whiskey Rebellion, in Washington's term as POTUS, was to vigorously enforce fire safety regulations.
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Does it matter? If you start off with beer which wouldn't make you go blind, then remove some of the water, there isn't going to be more methanol in it than you started off with.
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They are supposedly starting with ordinary, fit-to-drink beer. Therefore there wasn't any methanol to begin with, and thus they don't have to worry about getting rid of it.
Realistically, though... (Score:2)
... not very much methanol is actually produced in the process of fermentation. Typically, methanol formation requires the presence of pectin [wikipedia.org], which wouldn't normally be found in wort, and even then, very little is formed. A bigger issue is the formation of fusel alcohols [wikipedia.org], which are removed in the process of heat distilling, but remain with the distillate in freeze distilling. These higher order alcohols can produce off flavors in the product, and some believe them to be contributors to hangover symptoms, a
As a brewer (Score:5, Insightful)
As a brewer, distillation offends my sensibilities if you keep calling it beer.
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George Thorogood (Score:2)
100 proof beer is like someone consolidating one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer into a single drink.
Re:George Thorogood (Score:4, Funny)
US Govt. Restrictions (Score:2)
I hope the US Govt. doesn't feel the need to ban such a beer from reaching the citizens. Limits on %'s that different alcohols can be sold at is just stupid in my book.
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US Government: No...
State Government: Probably...
I can see the stories about teens getting killed just because they thought they were normal beers.
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Somehow I don't see that many teens buying a $60 beer.
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There are two problems with your hope. First, most alcohol regulation occurs at the state level. Second, since I have had 151 proof rum for years and have seen vodkas over 190 proof, the problem is not that it is banned, but that it is taxed more as the alcohol level increases (unless denatured, aka poisoned).
Malt Liquor? (Score:2)
I always thought distilled beer was called malt liquor. No?
The article is a bit off (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeast limits the fermentation of sugars to alcohol. Once you get up around 17% to 20% ABV the yeast begin to die off. This is the natural limit of alcohol in beer. To distill the beer and increase the alcohol is to turn it into a distilled liquor and remove it from the realm of beer which is a fermented liquor.
Through selective breading or genetic manipulation of the yeast we may some day get a yeast that can produce more than the 17% to 20% but that is not the case today.
I found the article a bit misleading. If you distill it, it is a distilled liquor not a beer. This is like saying you made a beer from grapes, lol, it is not beer it is wine. lol
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Actually the limit is around 27% but just takes special yeast.
The Sam Adam's Utopias are made this way (no distillation). They simply took the hardiest yeast from repeated generations to get a strain that had extremely high alcohol survivability. This allowed them to reach 27%. That being said, there will always be a limit before the yeast dies off. The only way to push the ABV is distillation, which in my mind, really isn't beer. Beer by definition is a fermented not a distilled drink.
Eeew. (Score:2)
As if it needs to taste any worse. (Would you like a mixer for that beer?)
This coming, of course, from an already non-beer-fan. :)
i suggest a new category (Score:2)
proposed name: idleidle
Double Bag (Score:2)
I thought Long Trail Double Bag was pretty stiff at 7.2%. I can't see why you would call this beer. That would be like calling brandy "extreme wine" - sure you could do that but why?
Fortified Beer? (Score:2)
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Some people don't think that beer with hop extract in it is really beer. So beer with added alcohol is certainly not beer to a whole market of people who will actually spend an absurd amount of money to buy a beer. For instance I have a couple of $11.50 22oz bottles and one $22 bottle aging in my booze cupboard and that's small potaters. Most beers don't age well, you need high alcohol and hop-essence content. That's what IPA is from; India Pale Ales were highly hopped so that they would keep and also still
So what to call it? (Score:2)
All I learned about Beer, I learned from the Bard. (Score:2)
A long time ago, way back in history,
when all there was to drink was nothin but cups of tea.
Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mops,
and he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops.
He must have been an admiral a sultan or a king,
and to his praises we shall always sing.
Look what he has done for us he's filled us up with cheer!
Lord bless Charlie Mops, the man who invented beer beer beer
tiddly beer beer beer.
The Curtis bar, the James' Pub, the Hole in the Wall as well
one thing you can be sure
Alcohol isn't the only thing concentrated (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, genetic engineering of a yeast that can tolerate higher alcohol concentration without producing a lot of congeners - that would be something worth doing.
I guess they were right in Bottom Live 2003 (Score:3, Funny)
Suuure (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a single Idle is pants post in sight !
You're all drunken hypocrites
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