World's strongest beer with 32% strength launched

[wellinghall]

A controversial Scottish brewery has launched what it described as the world's strongest beer - with a 32% alcohol content.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/8380412.stm

Comments

[overconvergent.livejournal.com]

I wonder how they make it that strong?

[emperor]

freeze-distillation

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Out of ignorance - why freeze-distillation, and not any other sort?

Also, could it be fortified with the addition of spirits?

[emperor]

Dunno, that's what the brewery said :)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Fairy nuff :-)

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Freeze distillation is cheaper and more controllable for small quantities of stuff, IIRC. Also, of course, you'll get different mixtures of volatiles (and thus different flavours) with different types of distillation; they may have tried several and decided this was nicest. But I suspect it was easier and cheaper :)

You could fortify it with spirits, but in order to get from even a very strong (say 10%abv) beer to this strength, you'd wind up with something that contained more spirit than original beer. So it might not taste quite like beer any more, since it'd really be cheap vodka diluted with a bit of beer :)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Good grief. Is that really necessary? In fact, is that really beer?!

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Tactical nuclear...

...Wilfred?!

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting, I like the way they suggest it should be served in fractions of a gill rather than half-pints. As I recall there was a lovely strong beer (strong beer ... not compare to this, hah!) on sale at the Mitre when we were there for Hannah's DPhil graduation, and they could only sell it in halves (but they didn't say you couldn't buy more than one at a time for yourself). Sadly I forget which one it was ...

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

I had a look at their website (over Tony's shoulder) and was rather put off by the air of smug pretentiousness. Not that strong beer is my thing, anyway...