The World's Strongest, Most Expensive Beer Served Inside a Squirrel 228
If you have $765 burning a hole in your pocket, and a penchant for drinking alcohol out of a taxidermied animal, the good folks at BrewDog have just the drink for you. Their latest creation, called The End of History, is a 110 proof beer that comes packaged in a variety of small stuffed animals.
The actual link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is it a beer? (Score:3, Informative)
German Eisbocks are still considered beers, but at 55% alcohol, this is just really crappy infused whiskey.
Hilarious PETA response in 3... 2... 1... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is it a beer? (Score:4, Informative)
There is not, and cannot be... (Score:4, Informative)
...any such thing as 110 proof beer.
Re:Drink too much... (Score:3, Informative)
I think that would be a civit which is a cat like animal not a Monkey:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civet [wikipedia.org]
Maybe you've taken exotic coffee to a new level.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There is not, and cannot be... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Freeze Distilation != Brewing... (Score:1, Informative)
to be considered a whiskey it must be aged in a wooden barrel
Re:There is not, and cannot be... (Score:2, Informative)
What is exactly beer will differe for regions - a few have "purity laws": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot [wikipedia.org]
However that doesn't include things like wheat beers which are obviously still beer, however they all are basically fermented barely, hops, and water - wheat, rice, fruits, vegetables, and other flavoring can be added (and make no mistake with them - a "fruit" beer can be VERY heavy, bitter, and alcoholic. There is no reason why one can not make a right tasty raspberry imperial stout and many homebrewers do).
What the person you are asking is referring to is that beer are *fermented*, little living organism called "yeast" eat the sugers from the grains, fruits, or any others they can and turn it into alcohol (in a sense we are drinking their excrement). Since they are alive and it is a bilogical, not chemical, process these organism have tolerances for the environment they live in. As a brewer there are four basic ways you "stop" fermentation.. Commercial brewers usually ensure death of the little critters by pasteurizing the beer, few homebrewers have the equipment to do it (not to mention many of us hate the taste it imparts and would refuse even if we could). The more typical way is to have the yeast eat up all thier food and die out from starvation - if I put 3lbs of malts in a mash it will have a lower alcohol content than if I put 10lbs in there for that reason. The last, and least common way for beer makers is with a high enough alcohol content it kills them.
For the latter most yeast strains die at about 10% per weight (do not know by volume), there are wine yeasts that will go into the ~15% and I have an especially hardy strain go nearly to 18% but that was only once (and the mead tasted terrible too, they produce more than alcohol and they ate so much of the sugars/body of the mead it was ... bad, those "other" products generally do not taste good). For the most part anything above around 12% by weight is going to be hard to do and take either luck (or really unlucky for a brewer)or a great deal of skill with keeping them alive.
To go higher than that you need to distill the product or fortify it (which is adding distilled alcohols back into it to stop fermentation - port wines work that way). In which case it ceases to be beer and becomes something else. At 50% alcohol (most likely by volume) it is more akin to how you make many other spirits - you take a highly pure neutral alcohol and add some other liquid to get it to the proof you desire. Vodka would be cut with water, schnapps cut with a flavored sugar syrup, lemon-cello with a lemon zest extract and water, and then either sold as is (vodka) or aged in some process (wooden barrels for whiskey). In this case you would cut it with beer.
As such it is, most definitely, *not* beer anymore.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Informative)
According to the original article [brewdog.com], all of the squirrels and stoats used were roadkill (damn drunk drivers).
Re:Is it a beer? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Speaking of PETA, (Score:2, Informative)