My latest Beer 101 column, which finishes off a three-part series on big beer, looks that the Andre the Giant of beer – the 20% plus extreme beer. After some quick accounting of how exactly you can make a beer at 30, 40 or 50 percent alcohol, I spend most of the piece discussing whether we should even consider beer this big as still being beer.
There is a solid argument for saying it isn’t. Extreme beer are made through freeze distillation, a process more akin to the production of spirits than beer. Second, they are not really consumable in the same fashion as beer, even barley wines. You can’t quietly sip a Tactical Nuclear Penguin over an hour. It is too hot and too alcoholic for that.
On the flipside, freeze distillation has a long history in the brewing of Eisbock. Plus the product starts life as beer, is sold as beer, and is made by brewers. We don’t see Smirnoff releasing an extreme beer. It is push-the-envelope brewers like Brewdog that do it. Besides, if it isn’t beer, what is it?
I offer up a few other thoughts on the subject and offer my position – that they still rate as beer despite their size and lack of drinkability. However, I realize that is a point open to debate.
So read the Beer 101 piece, give it some thought and weigh in with your two-bits.
November 23, 2011 at 1:44 PM
I am inclined to think that it is beer as long as it contains commonly accepted beer ingredients and is created using a normal beer making process (mash, boil, ferment, age, enjoy).
It stops being beer once I have ingested and digested it.
November 26, 2011 at 9:04 AM
I believe in an issue of BYO magazine (or TAPS… can’t remember), Charles Bamforth had a quote addressing this that I kind of agree with. If you have a beer that is pushing the envelope in ABV, then it should be called a whiskey. If you think about it, that is all whiskey is. The process of making whiskey is very similar to the process of making beer. The making of whiskey only requires the addition of distillation equipment. The wash is mashed, boiled and fermented in much the same way as beer. There is even a craft distiller in Colorado that contracts the brewing of the wash to Flying Dog.
I had considered the idea of making a nice beer with a fairly simple grain bill, try vacuum distillation (to avoid cooking the beer), then once the alcohol is out, reintroduce the leftover beer into the alcohol into a 60/40 mixture, then oak it. That is no longer a beer. That is a whiskey.
November 26, 2011 at 9:48 AM
I don’t really care what it is called, as long as it tastes good.
I made an eis-distilled 20% abv “beverage” 2 years ago (actually had the abv measured in a lab, hydrometer results suggested it was higher). Fantastic stuff, compares very well in tastings.
The eis-distilled BrewDog beers I have tried are a trainwreck. Disgusting, should be aged like a fine whiskey before unleashing on the public. And ridiculously overpriced to boot.
I will finally be trying some Sam Adams Utopias at a tasting in a couple weeks, certainly looking forward to it.
November 26, 2011 at 8:42 PM
Mark, would love to try that 20% beer of yours. Given your brewing reputation, I imagine it might change my mind about extreme beer. To date I have not been impressed – I share your impression of the BrewDog big beer.