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The Race To Beer With 50% Alcohol By Volume
ElectricSteve writes "Most of the world's beer has between 4% and 6% alcohol by volume (ABV). The strength of beer achieved by traditional fermentation brewing methods has limits, but a well-crafted beer that is repeatedly 'freeze distilled' can achieve exquisite qualities and much higher alcohol concentrations. An escalation in the use of this relatively new methodology over the last 12 months has seen man's favorite beverage suddenly move into the 40+% ABV realm of spirits such as gin, rum, brandy, whiskey, and vodka, creating a new category of extreme beer. The world's strongest beer was 27% ABV, but amidst an informal contest to claim the title of the world's strongest beer, the top beer has jumped in strength dramatically. This week Gizmag spoke to the brewers at the center of the escalating competition. New contestants are gathering, and the race is now on to break 50% alcohol by volume."
We have had distilled beer in Scotland for years now. We call it, erm let me think ... oh yes, whisky!
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Beer at 50% ABV is called whisky.
If it's freeze distilled, I don't see why they can't do it. All they are doing is brewing a normal beer, then removing some of the water.
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Wrong. This is not beer, this is a distilled beverage. This technique isn't new, and the method of distillation is the only thing that makes this product distinct from traditional whiskey.
I'm not an expert, but I play one on slashdot.
So that's the 2nd most ancient method to produce alcohol in the world... The first one being: take some juice, let it ferment, drink (applies to wine, beer, honey-wine, etc). The next step is to take that fermented juice on a cold winter night, let some of it freeze (the water part), throw the ice away and repeat until the alcohol concentration is high enough for your taste. Word of warning: it usually produces a bad taste as a lot of stuff (aldehydes, amides, etc) that are better off either evaporated or left at the bottom of the tank will stay in the brew.
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It's whisky. Just because it's distilled by freezing instead of heating the principle is the same hence the term 'distilling'. Temperature differences are being used to remove water.
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You mean the same methanol that was in the normal beer to begin with?
But in far lower concentrations. i.e. 1 pint of normal beer would contain far less methanol than 1 pint of distilled beer.
If you freeze distill it, then it stops being beer in my book.
Same here, but unfortunately the EU has forced us here in Germany to lower our standards so that people may call it "beer" even if it hasn't been made according to the Reinheitsgebot. In fact, such beverages have been around for quite some time under the name Bierschnaps.
Oh, and if you're interest in fancy drinks, you should try to get a Kehlenschneider. 80% ABV and 400,000 Scoville units. Which means you won't even notice the alcohol in it.
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It's whisky. Just because it's distilled by freezing instead of heating the principle is the same hence the term 'distilling'. Temperature differences are being used to remove water.
Distillation is a separation by difference in volatility (or vapor pressure). The more volatile component will be present in the vapor phase in a higher concentration than the other stuff when you boil the liquid.
The process here is called crystallization, and has very little to do with distillation, except that it also is used in a separation. Also, there is no temperature difference - it's just cold. The temperature of the entire barrel of beer-like-booze will gradually drop, but there is no temperature difference like in a distillation process where the temperature of the boiling liquid differs from the condensing vapors.
While you scoop out more ice, the temperature drops (as a function of alcohol content in the liquid). So, the liquid will cool down more over time... but there is no requirement to have a temperature difference unless you're afraid that the ice won't melt and go down the sink.
Whiskey is the condensed gas phase of the beer and you throw away the liquid residue.
In this process the good stuff never left the liquid phase. You throw away the ice.
Anyway, we've entered a discussion where we disagree on definitions. I'll give you the point that this may not be beer, but it certainly isn't whiskey either.
If you disagree with me on the distillation part, you can also change the text on wikipedia (types of distillation, subsection "other types", subsubsection "stuff that isn't really distillation").
Freeze distillation is an analogous method of purification using freezing instead of evaporation. It is not truly distillation, but a recrystallization where the product is the mother liquor, and does not produce products equivalent to distillation. This process is used in the production of ice beer and ice wine to increase ethanol and sugar content, respectively. It is also used to produce applejack. Unlike distillation, freeze distillation concentrates poisonous congeners rather than removing them.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation#Other_types )
Except that evaporative and freeze distilling do not necessarily remove the same non-alcohol components. There is much more in wash/mash/beer than just water and alcohol. I have no personal experience with freeze distilling so I can't say which congeners stick around, but it could, and probably does, produce a much different product.
Methanol in Prohibition-era hootch was present as an adulterant - in other words, it was deliberately added to bathtub gin because it was cheap, and the producers didn't particularly care about their customers' health. Much like melamine was added to various Chinese products to make them appear more protein-rich.
Beer yeast will stop fermenting long before 17% To get higher than about 7-8% brewers typically use a wine yeast. That makes it taste more like a barleywine. You can cover some of that up with hops but it is much harder to make it taste right when you stop using beer yeast. At around 13-14% they'd have to switch to a high alcohol content yeast. At this point, there isn't much you can do to make it taste like beer.
Back in my university days, I made homebrew in residence to save money. Then I taught the other guys on my floor how to make it, and loaned them my equipment, leading to a peak production of 70 dozen beer per week on our floor. You wanna bet the women liked partying on OUR floor. :)
Personally, I don't think you can call what these guys are making beer.
Soaking it in whiskey barrels, for example... cheating. People buy those barrels and fill them with water, then let the alcohol soak out of them and drink it... they call it swish. Not just adding "flavour" with those barrels.
Using fractional freezing techniques to make it stronger is about as novel as leaving your apple cider out in the snow and separating the frozen stuff out. Personally, I wouldn't call it "beer" either after it's been treated this way.
I can see why it's expensive though. Each time you freeze and filter it, the concentration of alcohol in the frozen material increases, until you're just throwing away alcohol and not concentrating it at all. So, making one of those super strong ice hardened beers involves a large amount of waste, assuming you're not taking the "ice" and firing it into a conventional still to recover the loss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_freezing
We're getting ready to do it ourselves here at home, because operating a still is illegal, but freezing your wine isn't. We're using champagne yeast, apple juice, grape juice, blackberry juice, blueberry juice, dextrose and honey.
I almost broke the world record for strongest beer back the 80s... did my junior high school science fair project on brewing, and made an IPA that was 11.5% at a time when the record was 12%. Wish I'd been allowed to drink it :P
I should make a beer using starch as an adsorbent. Call it Beershine or something.
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I recently shared a Rauchbier (literally smoke beer in German) with friends just to try it - in fact, I had the Bamberg pictured in that link. The consensus was it was a strange tasting beer with lingering flavors of smoked bacon, which is a bit too odd of a combo for me. I've had an Eisbock (literally Ice Bock and Bock is a place - it is derived from Einbeck, where the style was first brewed) before, but it was more in the 18% ABV range and a bit bitter for my tastes, but the India Pale Ale fan of my friends loved it (IPAs are pale ales with extra hops [a preservative] originally used to survive long trips - like England to India, and this beer tasted IPA-ish, so may have been extra-hopped, as well). I've also recently had a Gruit, which is an unhopped beer - it was very good and different, and not malty like I expected - the flavors of anise, nutmeg and cinnamon stood out.
My personal tastes tend to be about 20-50IBU (International Bitterness Units), which excludes most Pilsners (after Pilsen, originally in Bohemia, now Czech) and IPAs, which hopheads love. I still like to mix it up and try lots of oddities. My wife prefers schwartzbier (black beer) - preferably Köstritzer (and I drive 25 miles to a specialty store to get it, which is why I often end up with a bunch of oddities to try, as well), but New Belgium's 1554 will do in a pinch.
unfortunately the EU has forced us here in Germany to lower our standards so that people may call it "beer" even if it hasn't been made according to the Reinheitsgebot
And thank god for that... the Reinheitsgebot is one of the worst laws in existence. It was originally written to stop competition in grain prices between brewers and bakers. Yep, that's right, brewers were limited to certain ingredients to keep the price of bread down. This law was then spread to other countries so that brewers who had to follow the law could actually compete in the marketplace. I'm sorry, but that is not the process for making a good law.
Today, the law is merely a marketing sham. That is, marketing departments like to claim that following the law somehow makes the beer better and that their company follows the law; the first is false, and the second usually is.