BrewDog Launches the World’s Strongest Beer

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Message beastiefan2k P beers 5014 º places 294 º 10:04 Fri 11/27/2009 Originally posted by JamesBrewDog The lab used gas chromatography to determine the abv at 32.065% The certificate can be seen here http://www.twitpic.com/r5zot James, BrewDog thanks for the link.
Message DonMagi beers 5592 º places 50 º 10:10 Fri 11/27/2009 Cry all we want gents, but i think theres evidance enough. And yes i do have a bottle next to me and yes i will have one at a tasting next month and yes you are invited to taste it.
Message cgarvieuk P beers 37694 º places 457 º 10:14 Fri 11/27/2009 Originally posted by Magicdave6 Cry all we want gents, but i think theres evidance enough. And yes i do have a bottle next to me and yes i will have one at a tasting next month and yes you are invited to taste it. Where the Photo of you Penguin bag then. Im really looking forward to my Penguin Bag

Message steview beers 1037 º places 21 º 21:46 Fri 11/27/2009 I love this website.
Message WeeHeavySD beers 3488 º places 111 º 23:37 Fri 11/27/2009 Originally posted by rustychiles ISO!! damn i’m surprised it took a 2nd post to see an iso
Message Gazza beers 727 º places 167 º 09:44 Sat 11/28/2009 Originally posted by SilkTork My feeling is that when over 50% of the alcohol in a beer doesn’t comes from fermentation of the malt source, then it goes out of the Eisbock tradition and becomes a fortified product. Assuming I’ve understood "Ice distilling" correctly then there’s no non-malt alcohol in there, it’s just the water part that’s been removed. Basically, the big batch of 10% beer is now a much smaller batch of 30% beer with no added alcohol, it’s just a smaller amount of beer with the same amount of ethanol therefore stronger by volume? Still not sure of all the practicalities of Eisbock, but as it’s been a tradition for quite a while why shouldn’t it be classed as a beer?
Message SamGamgee P beers 2452 º places 182 º 10:16 Sat 11/28/2009 Originally posted by Gazza Originally posted by SilkTork My feeling is that when over 50% of the alcohol in a beer doesn’t comes from fermentation of the malt source, then it goes out of the Eisbock tradition and becomes a fortified product. Assuming I’ve understood "Ice distilling" correctly then there’s no non-malt alcohol in there, it’s just the water part that’s been removed. Basically, the big batch of 10% beer is now a much smaller batch of 30% beer with no added alcohol, it’s just a smaller amount of beer with the same amount of ethanol therefore stronger by volume? Still not sure of all the practicalities of Eisbock, but as it’s been a tradition for quite a while why shouldn’t it be classed as a beer? This is how I feel about it as well. It’s like saying some DIPAs aren’t beer anymore because their bitterness comes from chemically extracted hop acids that could not be achieved through normal brewing practices. Freeze distillation is fundamentally different from heat distillation and has a traditional place in making beer. Just because they are taking it further than before doesn’t mean they aren’t making beer anymore. I love that BrewDog is getting press on national media outlets for this as well. There is no way that this can be bad for craft beer.

Message SilkTork P beers 7767 º places 111 º 13:41 Sat 11/28/2009 Originally posted by Gazza Originally posted by SilkTork My feeling is that when over 50% of the alcohol in a beer doesn’t comes from fermentation of the malt source, then it goes out of the Eisbock tradition and becomes a fortified product. Assuming I’ve understood "Ice distilling" correctly then there’s no non-malt alcohol in there, it’s just the water part that’s been removed. Basically, the big batch of 10% beer is now a much smaller batch of 30% beer with no added alcohol, it’s just a smaller amount of beer with the same amount of ethanol therefore stronger by volume? Still not sure of all the practicalities of Eisbock, but as it’s been a tradition for quite a while why shouldn’t it be classed as a beer? Well, if you think of heat distilling, then in a whiskey (which starts out as a beer) the product is all malt alcohol. There are some beers to which brewers will add a dash of rum or some other alcohol. We regarded these as, say, rum-flavoured beers. But if you had a bottle of rum and added a bit of beer to it, that wouldn’t make it beer. There has to be a point at which we say that a product ceases to be one thing and becomes another. When a beer is distilled into a whisky, we don’t have a problem. When a 6% lager is partly freeze-distilled into a 7.5% Eisbock, we don’t have a problem. But here we have a 10% beer which has been fully freeze-distilled into a 33% product. Is it still a fermented beer? Hardly. So what is it? I have suggested we can think of it as a fortified beer because some (the bulk in fact) of the strength comes from a distilled beer, in the same way that a fortified wine gets part of its strength from a distilled wine. And in both the heat and the freeze distilling process there are elements and compounds other than water which are lost.
Message Cletus beers 6349 º places 233 º 15:16 Sat 11/28/2009 Originally posted by SilkTork Originally posted by Gazza Originally posted by SilkTork My feeling is that when over 50% of the alcohol in a beer doesn’t comes from fermentation of the malt source, then it goes out of the Eisbock tradition and becomes a fortified product. Assuming I’ve understood "Ice distilling" correctly then there’s no non-malt alcohol in there, it’s just the water part that’s been removed. Basically, the big batch of 10% beer is now a much smaller batch of 30% beer with no added alcohol, it’s just a smaller amount of beer with the same amount of ethanol therefore stronger by volume? Still not sure of all the practicalities of Eisbock, but as it’s been a tradition for quite a while why shouldn’t it be classed as a beer? Well, if you think of heat distilling, then in a whiskey (which starts out as a beer) the product is all malt alcohol. There are some beers to which brewers will add a dash of rum or some other alcohol. We regarded these as, say, rum-flavoured beers. But if you had a bottle of rum and added a bit of beer to it, that wouldn’t make it beer. There has to be a point at which we say that a product ceases to be one thing and becomes another. When a beer is distilled into a whisky, we don’t have a problem. When a 6% lager is partly freeze-distilled into a 7.5% Eisbock, we don’t have a problem. But here we have a 10% beer which has been fully freeze-distilled into a 33% product. Is it still a fermented beer? Hardly. So what is it? I have suggested we can think of it as a fortified beer because some (the bulk in fact) of the strength comes from a distilled beer, in the same way that a fortified wine gets part of its strength from a distilled wine. And in both the heat and the freeze distilling process there are elements and compounds other than water which are lost. I understand where you are coming from, but fortified means alcohol has been added. Alcohol has not been added here. Water has been removed.
Message SilkTork P beers 7767 º places 111 º 15:48 Sat 11/28/2009 Originally posted by Cletus I understand where you are coming from, but fortified means alcohol has been added. Alcohol has not been added here. Water has been removed. I think we are in danger of getting lost in semantics. My point is that a fortified wine is a partly a fermented wine, and partly a fermented wine that has been distilled. A freeze-distilled beer is partly a fermented beer and partly a fermented beer that has been distilled. It is that curious mix of fermented and distilled that I’m interested in. If you don’t like the term fortified as an easy comparison, what would you prefer? What I think nobody can dispute is that this BrewDog beer does not contain 100% fermented beer - it contains a significant proportion of distilled alcohol. So much so that it would be legally defined as a liquor. In the UK if alcohol over 1.2% is made by distilling it is classed as a spirit and taxed at a higher rate. There are regulations restricting who can distill. It seems odd that this beer was produced (or distilled) in an ice-cream factory - but I think that Scotland has slightly different rules regarding distilling than England. It would be interesting to learn what BrewDog had to do to get this distilling done in an ice-cream factory....