The UK

parmalee said:
A single pint at 27% would be roughly equivalent to a case of mass-marketed beer at 3.5%--how can that still legally be market as beer?
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A single pint at 27% is the equivalent alcohol of 2 bottles of 11% wine, or a single bottle of port. That's no longer a beer... that's an offensive weapon! ;)
I can only assume that it is sold in pubs (if at all) in much smaller measures... almost like spirits.
 
billvon said:
Around here most IPAs are from 5 to 8%, depending on whether it's a regular, a double or triple.
A local brewery (Lost Abbey) specializes in big belgians and stouts, and they go to 12 or 13%.
A sort of local brewery (Bruery) does barrel aged beers based on their Black Tuesday recipe. Those START at 20% and hit 27% or so.
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That can't be achieved by fermentation. If those numbers are correct the concoction must have been "fortified" by the addition of distilled spirit.

From memory, natural fermentation reaches a limit somewhere below 20% as the alcohol starts to poison the yeasts. For instance, port is fortified and that is ~20%.

So really what you describe is not beer, or not as we know it, Jim.
 
It sounds more like what the Russian's use to kill their enemies. It gradually takes out the liver...
 
exchemist said:
That can't be achieved by fermentation. If those numbers are correct the concoction must have been "fortified" by the addition of distilled spirit.

From memory, natural fermentation reaches a limit somewhere below 20% as the alcohol starts to poison the yeasts. For instance, port is fortified and that is ~20%.

So really what you describe is not beer, or not as we know it, Jim.
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There are yeasts that will allow c.20% or slightly more. They're probably specifically engineered for that, but they do exist.
Also note that the beer could also be strengthened through distillation, typically through freezing and removing some of the water content. It's not what one might typically think of as distillation but I think it's still referred to as that.
 
Sarkus said:
There are yeasts that will allow c.20% or slightly more. They're probably specifically engineered for that, but they do exist.
Also note that the beer could also be strengthened through distillation, typically through freezing and removing some of the water content. It's not what one might typically think of as distillation but I think it's still referred to as that.
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Well yes, that isn't distillation at all, but freeze concentration, a technique I believe is used in a number of areas of the food industry where one needs to avoid heat while concentrating the material in question.

I must say I have difficulty imagining that beer concentrated to that degree, by a factor of 5 or more, would be appetising.

But I take your point that there are ways of getting to that alcohol level without necessarily resorting to fortification.
 
parmalee said:
A single pint at 27% would be roughly equivalent to a case of mass-marketed beer at 3.5%--how can that still legally be market as beer?
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In the US the sort of beverage is determined by how it's made. Grain mash with fermentation? Beer. Grape mash with fermentation? Wine. Mash then distillation? Spirits.
 
Sarkus said:
A single pint at 27% is the equivalent alcohol of 2 bottles of 11% wine, or a single bottle of port. That's no longer a beer... that's an offensive weapon! ;)
I can only assume that it is sold in pubs (if at all) in much smaller measures... almost like spirits.
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Funny story there.

I had bottles of Older Viscosity and Deliverance (20% and 18% respectively) sitting on the table for a party I threw about 10 years ago. I was going to pour some tasters for people who were interested in big barrel aged stouts and hand them out. I went to get some small cups - and when I came back these two guys visiting from Australia were drinking them out of the bottle.

No worries, I got them out so people would drink them, and I had another bottle of Older Vis.

The next day they asked "uh, was that beer higher alcohol than, like Guiness?"

"Yeah almost 5 times higher."

"Oh. That explains it."
 
Sarkus said:
There are yeasts that will allow c.20% or slightly more. They're probably specifically engineered for that, but they do exist.
Also note that the beer could also be strengthened through distillation, typically through freezing and removing some of the water content. It's not what one might typically think of as distillation but I think it's still referred to as that.
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These beers generally use yeasts like White Labs WLP099 - that will take beers up to 25%. Tomme Arthur (who runs Lost Abbey) has run straight beers that high but there's a problem - once they hit that 25% mark they are absolutely done, and any residual sugar stays in the beer. Which means it's very hard to control the final sugar concentration, so it's hard to hit a flavor profile.

So nowadays he doesn't go much past 20%.

What the Bruery does for beers like this year's Chocolate Rain (23%) is that they will make the base stout with a high gravity yeast that takes it up to 21% or so, then they barrel age it in bourbon barrels and that adds a few percentage points. There is some guesswork involved, because every barrel has slightly more or less residual bourbon, and slightly more or less porous wood. They will occasionally run an actual test (i.e. send it to a lab to have its ABV tested) to make sure they are not grossly off, then use that result to calibrate themselves for future beers. (i.e. "for this type of bourbon barrel we will see a 2% increase.")

For the really high ABVs they will take it to 23 or 24% during fermentation then do two stages of barrel aging - say cognac and then bourbon. The point isn't the high ABV - it's to be able to sell a cognac/bourbon barrel aged beer for $50 a bottle - but that's sometimes the result.
 
Seattle said:
Is beer considered a beverage or more of a vitamin?
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Not really either. One takes vitamins to prolong life; one takes beer to improve its quality. And calling it a beverage is like calling Stonehenge "some rocks arranged outdoors", or Westminster Abbey "a building". Technically correct but misses the point. The drinking of beer is essentially historical conservation of our oral tradition, albeit with a foamy head. It is our cultural infrastructure, upon which agreements have been made and broken, wars won and lost. Think of it like the Bitcoin of our heritage: distributed, across our village pubs. With optional salty snacks.
;)
 
Sarkus said:
Not really either. One takes vitamins to prolong life; one takes beer to improve its quality. And calling it a beverage is like calling Stonehenge "some rocks arranged outdoors", or Westminster Abbey "a building". Technically correct but misses the point. The drinking of beer is essentially historical conservation of our oral tradition, albeit with a foamy head. It is our cultural infrastructure, upon which agreements have been made and broken, wars won and lost. Think of it like the Bitcoin of our heritage: distributed, across our village pubs. With optional salty snacks.
;)
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It was a joke.
 
Seattle said:
It was a joke.
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Yes. Hence the nature of the reply. :rolleyes:
But it's okay if you didn't get that I wasn't being serious, and was overstating the case for beer. British humour. Might be lost in translation. ;)
 
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