Utopian dream

Just over a year ago a certain Scottish brewer released the final iteration of what had become an inevitable, and somewhat tiresome, brewing arms race. The desire to produce stronger and stronger beer served to garner a lot of publicity for BrewDog (and erstwhile rivals Schorschbräu), and was all pretty predictable. Like a beery equivalent of those needle-shaped dragsters, once something becomes a numbers game (whether it’s miles per hour or alcohol by volume), a certain type of man inevitably ratchets up the game until we’re left with cars that can only stop because they have parachutes, and beer served in roadkill.*

In case you hadn’t heard, that ‘strongest beer in the world’ ended up being BrewDog’s 55% abv The End of History. Retailing at £500/£700 a bottle (depending on choice of taxidermied critter), it was swiftly – and with far less fanfare – usurped by Dutch brewery t’Koelschip with their 60% Start the Future, and the joke within a joke took on a new level, and one that was even less relevant. Thankfully it all seems to have died down now – the PR arms-race has quietened, and the respective breweries have gone back to their other projects.

I was reminded of all this recently when I finally got the chance to try the strongest beer in the world. Not the strongest ‘beer’ – I’ve had The End of History, which was like neat alcohol, glue, vanilla and paint thinners (I’ve not managed to try Start the Future as yet). I’m talking about the commas-free world’s strongest beer. No less an impressive feat than their freeze-distilled cousins, the biggest traditionally brewed beer is Sam Adams Utopias, from the Boston Beer Company. The 2011 vintage (the sixth so far) clocks in at 27% – a mere whelp compared to those others – it combines three varieties of noble hop, plus caramel and Vienna malts, and a number of different strains of yeast.

I realise this is all subjective – but where I find serving a beer inside a stuffed squirrel a bit tacky, I love the copper brew kettle-effect of the Utopias bottle (others may disagree). Limited to 3000 bottles and retailing for $150, one of these brewing trophies had managed to make its convoluted way to Edinburgh – and it was the ultra-rare 2005 vintage. Poured into a small shot glass (the first ‘this isn’t beer’ moment), it was totally flat and deep blackcurrant in colour, leaving legs on the glass like a syrupy spirit. The nose featured dried fruit, figs, alcohol – presumably the result of the barrel-aging (different vintages were aged in brandy, sherry, whisky Madeira and/or port casks before being blended).

Very sweet on the palate, slightly spicy in places as well – these kinds of drinks are really hard to quantify (or easy, as pretty much anything goes). Oaky and syrupy, with plenty of sticky fruit, sweet bourbon and vanilla – some at the tasting said it reminded them of Crème Brule. Clearly this isn’t a beer – but then it is, as it’s been brewed and has water, malt, yeast and hops in there (before the barrel alchemy begins). Having half the abv of the End of History, there’s much, much less of the alcohol burn – but to me it still tastes like, and should be considered as, a spirit. It doesn’t taste like a beer should, but I really like it.

*An idea there to combine the two? How ‘punk’ would that be?!?!