Schorschbräu Schorschbock 40% -- The world's strongest beer
German brewers may often find themselves hindered by the limitations of the Reinheitsgebot, but that doesn't mean that they can't still join in on the "extreme beer" movement. One German brewery has proven this in an explosive way.
While the phrase "extreme beer" has become difficult to define and a bit convoluted these days, with nearly every brewery attempting to brew up something "extreme," many of these so-called extreme beers are becoming mainstream. Imperial/Double IPAs were, until somewhat recently, considered to be extreme, with their sky-high IBU counts obliterating palates and their enamel-dissolving hop resins sending orthodontists straight into early retirement. But palates have since become acclimated and dentures issued, so that this style has mostly fallen out of the world of the extreme and landed in the regular line-ups of a large number of craft brewers.
One of the areas in which the boundaries of the extreme continues to be pushed, though, is the world of high-alcohol brews. Creating a beer with an alcohol content in the upper teens is difficult enough for a brewer to manage, as most yeast strains cannot handle such elevated levels of ethanol. But there are methods in which brewers can accomplish the goal of producing extremely high-alcohol beers, such as using several fermentations with alcohol-tolerant yeasts, a process employed by Boston Beer Company in the making of their Samuel Adams Utopias.
Utopias once held the record for "world's strongest beer," and currently sitting at a whopping 27% ABV, it's nothing to scoff at.
But the record has since been broken, using a method much different from the one Boston Beer employs, and one that is much older.
Called "freeze distillation," the process was supposedly perfected by brewers in Kulmbach to produce the specialty called Eisbock, or "ice bock." The method calls for freezing already-fermented beer. The water, which freezes at a higher temperature than alcohol, will freeze first, and can then be removed. The concentrated liquid left behind is then much higher in alcohol and richer in flavor. The traditional Eisbock style uses the method of freeze distillation with a base of Bockbier, and the alcohol content generally ranges from about 9% ABV to upwards of 13%.
Toward the end of 2009, Scottish microbrewery BrewDog put out what they claimed to be the world's strongest beer. Called Tactical Nuclear Penguin (TNP), the brewery calls it a "double cask matured über-imperial stout." Weighing in at a mightily impressive 32% ABV accomplished through the use of freeze distillation, the beer handily outweighs Utopias by 5% ABV. It is still being released in limited runs, with each 330-ml bottle going for £35.00, or roughly $56.00.
But before BrewDog's venture with TNP, German brewery Schorschbräu had already one-upped Utopias' alcohol content with their Schorschbock, an Eisbock with an alcohol level of 31% by volume. Evidently not content with handing their crown over to folks away from the continent, the brewers managed to push their high-ABV specialty to 32%, matching BrewDog's.
And now they've surpassed the Scottish with their latest batch, which the brewery claims to come in at an astounding 40% ABV. Proofing most beers, even in the mid-to-upper teens and twenties in regard to alcohol content, is something that I generally frown upon. But here it seems pertinent in order to put things in perspective. This latest Schorschbock is an 80-proof beer -- that's whiskey territory, mind you. Not surprisingly, then, as BeerAdvocate user kappldav123 notes in Schorschbock 40%'s first review, this beer burns -- literally. Check out the photo he snapped for proof (no pun intended.)
Each 330-ml ceramic, swing-top, wax-dipped bottle of Schorschbock is hand-signed and -numbered by the Braumeister and is packaged, like a fine Scotch, in a glass-fronted wooden box. BA user kappldav123 reveals that each bottle costs €99.00, which is over $130.00 -- that's roughly the range of a bottle of Sam Adams Utopias. In his review, he notes that the beer "[s]tarts extremely hot and alcoholic, very, very strong, brings you almost to tears," but that is also displays "fruity notes of apricot, also a bit woody, not just alcohol."
At the time of the review, the run was evidently at an extremely limited fifteen bottles. Of course, even if the run were larger and exports to the United States possible, Augustans wouldn't expect to find any, as bottles of Utopias can't even be distributed in the state. As I noted in "The battle for bigger beer," Georgia's alcohol limit for beer sits at 14% by volume, putting Schorschbock a neat 26% ABV over the limit. (And with a beer as strong as this, it's difficult to even say how the US government would classify it. Eisbocks are generally classified as "malt liquors" or "malt beverages," as freeze distillation is exactly the opposite of true distillation, separating these beverages from the realm of spirits.)
So as the battle heats up (and burns!) in Europe, and the extreme beer wars move beyond the (tactical)nuclear era, the Peach State still has some other battles to fight before the fire can cross our borders and reach our glasses.
Comments
"The water, which freezes at a higher temperature than alcohol, will freeze first, and can then be removed." Water freezes at a lower temperature, otherwise you'd be removing the alcohol.
Actually the water freezes at a higher temperature. Then you run off the beer from the ice. You "remove the water" by leaving it behind when you drain the frozen beer.
The freezing point of water is 0 degrees Celsius, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, is the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. The freezing point of ethanol is approximately -114 Celsius, or about -173 Fahrenheit. Thus, water freezes at a temperature significantly higher than alcohol.
If you don't understand the chemistry behind it, the wording can make it a little confusing, and that seems to be what happened in this instance. Ice is correct: when you "remove the water," you are actually physically removing the concentrated beer and leaving the water behind as ice. Hopefully this clears things up a bit, and thanks for the input, both of you!
Very informing article.
I don't consider this to be breaking the 27% record, because there not reaching the ABV with fermentation alone. All there doing is removing water so the concentration of ethanol is greater. Too me this is equivalent to adding grain alcohol to a beer to raise the ABV.
Sure its extreme, but I wouldn't call it the "worlds strongest beer". Sam Adams number may be stretching as well because its unclear if any of the ethanol comes from the solution previously in the barrels they age in.
I would call this beer the "worlds strongest beer using freeze distillation techniques". Which I would presume would be fairly easy to break by just removing more water. At what point does this cease to be even beer??
Jaime:
Your points have been widely argued over beers such as this one and BrewDog's TNP. The argument is usually focused over your point that Utopias is fermented to 27% ABV versus the concentration of alcohol through freeze distillation. It's a divisive subject, for sure. But because the method is used in traditional specialties like Eisbock (which, of course, is usually much lower in alcohol) and is not true distillation, I think that it will continue to be considered "beer" until some agency makes the ultimate decision to move it to the status of spiritous liquor. I believe that, no matter what may happen, this very subject will continue to divide opinion; of course, just about everything divides opinion regarding beer these days - some argue that beer must contain hops, while others stand in opposition, and so on. It's a valid topic to bring open for discussion, but so long as it's considered "beer," it stands as the strongest in the world, regardless of how it got there.
If any distillation is involved at all, it moves into the realm of a liqueur or, in this case, hard liquor. It is no longer beer. Since Utopias uses yeast and no distillation, Sam Adams still has the highest alcohol beverage that I could possibly call beer.
John:
Therein lies the problem: distillation, by conventional definition, is exactly the opposite of freezing the liquid to concentrate its constituents. Distillation most often the boiling of the liquid to separate substances of differing volatility, and freeze "distillation," though the effect is essentially the same, is not true distillation and therefore the lines become blurred. The true process of "freeze distilling" is called fractional freezing and so, by definition, is not distillation at all. It seems evident that something should be done to properly categorize this class of beverages.
Discussions on how the ABV is derived aside, the new "Top Dog" is once again BrewDog with Sink the Bismark! at 41%...check it out at brewdog.com in the lower right portion of the page.
Who cares how they do it, as long as they keep on doing it!
Not beer.
NEXT!
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