After Samuel Adams’ Utopias and the 31% Schorschbräu, the folks at BrewDog beat them both last fall when they came out with Tactical Nuclear Penguin, at 32%. Then Schorschbräu answered back with a 40% version. In February, BrewDog launched Sink the Bismark, again over-taking their German rivals with the 41% hop bomb.
Schorschbräu has now created a 43% Version, and is again — at least for now — the world’s strongest beer. Gizmag has a nice recap of the whole story.
They should all concentrate on making great beer and not this silliness. But the PR is priceless. And the beer isn’t far behind at $60 a bottle.
Start them distilling and be done with it. The highest % beer has little to do with flavor and quality. That these companies keep playing this brinkmanship is getting old, it’s like the hoppiest beer fight, boring. What is the Garrett Oliver quote? About anyone can just toss hops at a beer (paraphrased). I am not sure I would pay for any of them except Utopias, that one I did years ago and probably would again, I’d rather see Lew’s Session movement take off.
This seems totally reasonable to me. It sounds like more a competition of innovation and brewing technique than an effort to make a great tasting beer, but what’s wrong with that? It’s like building a car with 500 horse-power; it’s not like it serves any practical purpose, but you do it because it’s fun, and because it pushes you to understand more about how to eke out every ounce of power. It’s like a concept beer.