Via Beernews.org (note: my emphasis):
Controversial beer makers BrewDog have unveiled the world’s stronger and most expensive beer.
The Fraserburgh brewery has unveiled their 55% ABV The End of History tipple priced at a staggering £500 a bottle. Only 12 bottles of the blond Belgian ale have been created - with each one coming in a unique bottle made with stuffed animals dressed in eccentric outfits.
If there’s a news story about beer and a minor element is that each bottle comes at £500 pricetag ($758 in the US as of today), then something is fucking awry. For the bargain hunter’s sake, I hope it’s a 750ml bottle; for the animal that just fell victim to the world’s strangest colonoscopy, I hope it’s just the 330.
Backing up: it’s a 55% ABV beer. That’s 110 proof. That’s the proof of my favorite gin which is even high in its own right. If you don’t know your proofs, here’s a little cheat sheet:
- Budweiser: 8.4 proof
- Kahlua: 40 proof
- Grey Goose: 80 proof
- Jack Daniels: 90 proof
- Beer in a dead animal: 110 proof
BrewDog has been here before (sans experiments with taxidermy). They’ve gone back and forth with Schorschbräu - a German brewery - in a battle to see who can make the most alcoholic beer.
Here is a condensed history:
- Samuel Adams makes Utopias: 24% | 48 Proof
- Schorschbräu makes some beer and claims it’s stronger
- BrewDog makes Tactical Nuclear Penguin: 32% | 64 Proof
- Schorschbräu makes Schorschbräu Schorschbock: 40% | 80 Proof
- BrewDog makes Sink the Bismarck!: 41% | 82 Proof
- Schorschbräu ups the Schorschbock to be: 43% | need I keep doubling this for you guys?
Some of these beers were announced almost on top of each other and with jabs betwixt the two that included one brewery calling the other “sausage munchers” and the other retaliating with accustations of cross-dressing.
And now, this 110 proof thing is here. Is it a beer? I don’t even know anymore. I don’t want to talk about the Reinheitsgebot. I don’t want to talk real ale. I do want to put this in my mouth, slowly, and with an ambulance on call.
I feel like I did after I read The Stranger in ninth-grade: I can’t wrap my brain around it. I’m angry and I’m confused and I’m angry and I’m scared and I don’t know why.
I will do what I did after I read The Stranger in ninth-grade: I’m going to talk about it at parties to make me sound cool and it won’t work.
(Photo courtesy of stv.tv)
