World's Strongest Beer: how we got to 57.8% | The Craft Beer Channel 

"I cUt DoWn To OnE PiNt a DaY!!!!"

"I only had one pint, officer."

Beer actually OPENED at 11:45 in the video.

I think perhaps the most overlooked thing of the fun 'arms race' was the creation of nanny state in response to the tabloid sensationlisation of the strong beer they were making. Although the original was 1.1%, I feel the later edition 0.5% really set the standard for what you could achieve with non alcoholic beer - and it was originally inspired by a response to their strongest!

Actually Strongest Gin is Uncut Navy strength Gin at wopping 76% ABV, Whiskey's all over (Irish, Scotch, Bourbon, Japanese, & Canadian) can be sold as cask strength which ranges from 51-60+ % ABV.

I've got fish sauce, soy sauce, plenty of different sugars, and some everclear. Sounds like I can make this for much cheaper.

love how they went from a beer called sink the bismark to a collab. great story

Very cool. Had Sink the Bismark in one of the Brew Dog Pubs when I was in Scotland back in 2015. Thought that was strong enough. Would love to try this stuff.

On the % remark too, I'm an employee at BrewDog - and I can tell ya', our Gunpowder gin sits at 57% too, so Gin most certainly gets that high!

Those corks are actually still somewhat popular in Germany, just without the wax seal. They are pretty neat really, because when you walk around with the beer you can easily close it again.

I'd love to see you guys "rehydrate" this beer with some carbonated water to see what it was like. I've read that some macro-beer producers freeze distill their beer for transportation, then rehydrate at the destination for packaging.

13:28 took a sip. No words needed

I had Roger & Out in The Frog & Parrot in Sheffield (1986) believed to be the world's strongest beer at the time (21% brewed on the premises) and that was strong enough (sold in third of a pint and a certificate for each third drunk). Smiles Brewery I think then surpassed this but now, this is insane.

Just like making Apple Jack! Not really a beer but a freeze distillate like Brandy distilled with heat from wine. All the Beer parts are left behind and only the Methanol and ethanol is distilled. Plus whatever else is in there with a low freezing point. Going to be a hangover maker!

That's an interesting way to spell liquor

Just to add to your guys knowledge, cask strength apple brandy and absinthe are two other things I have in my home bar over 55%, both over 60 actually

Wicked!!!! We gotta get you guys and the worlds strongest beer on our show for season 2!!! Cheers!!

That intro was perfect lol 😭😂

This was much better than I expected it to be! In the video on my channel I said it was like someone mixed Whiskey with Madeira Wine... and maybe a touch of hand sanitiser

I like the look of this...seems nice and thick and dark like a good stout, however, it sounds like it's spiked like an exotic beer. I wonder, have you ever done an episode about barley wines? I know, when I go to beer festivals, when they have them on, there's always one that's by Marston's that sells out in a flash. It's about 9% from memory and tastes like the tastiest McVities hobnob (non-chocolate covered version) you could ever imagine :)

My first outing with friends in Belgium. Some pub in Mons, in Le Grand-Place. Beer was served in a large bowl sized glass. Probably a liter. After the second one I couldn't find my legs to walk to the bathroom. They told me the beer was 29%. I believed them. My initiation into Belgian beer. Merci!

Think it would have been interesting to see how I'd would taste if you added some water to it like people do with some whisky's.

Wow..Brewdog dog just push the boundaries and produce just great beer..luckily for me my nearest bar is 30 miles away i would never get anything done..😊👍🍺 cheers ..!

Nice video, the strongest beer (X-Beer 33) in Czech Republic is 12.6%. Also worth to try.

So its Beer Jack. They have been doing it with cider for centuries.

"Who mommy?" "You mommy."

Laughing at the idea of dunking sushi in it. Now I desperately want to see that happen

Holy hell that’s a beer! Jealous you got to try it. I don’t “wan’t” to try it, but I do. lol Bravo to those who contributed to making it!

Man I have to try this!

If it's freeze distilled, is not a beer. It's a spirit. It requires a totally different licence. If it's been aged in a barrel for years, it's whiskey more or less. I've heard of a microbrewery who's been brewing proper beer to the 20+% mark for decades though. They've been selectively breeding the yeast to get there. Can't remember the name of the brewery or beer though.

What a cool story, less posturing more fermenting!

Also 151 rum is also a quite popular thing in cocktails, reaching around 75%, there is also absinthe that can go upwards of 80

It’s distilled so it’s no longer beer. It’s a cold distilled whiskey.

On a leaving party in Liverpool, I got both a "Tactical Nuclear Penguin" and "The Bottle that sank the Bismark". A rather rough night... I remember the taste of the first one...

That process of freeze distillation is also known as "jacking". That's where we get the name of spirits like apple jack. My question is, can something still legally be called "beer" if it's been distilled?

that intro definitely made me giggle 😂

A standard pour of scotch (a dram) is about 35ml, so just enough in this bottle for a wee dram and it would cost the same as a dram of 30 year old Talisker.

BEER GEEKS! PLEASE before you post about this not being the strongest beer in the world, know that the Brewmeister beers were a con and were around 40% ABV. This was tested in a lab by a journalist who questioned their integrity and was correct. Read more here: thebeercast.com/2014/05/brewmeister-lies.html (UPDATE: Brewmeister may now have achieved the strength, but still by adding ethanol which means it is not legally beer.) Please also know that (as far as we are aware) the other claims to the throne, Start the Future and the Mystery of Beer, were also made by spiking with ethanol, so again not legally beer.

I keep my beer in a consumer medical grade refrigerator with a glass door. On its lowest setting it is 40- 42 degrees fahrenheit.

-80 fridges are used for a lot of medical molecular biology work, preserving extracted DNA and RNA samples.

I think I can drink this until the end of my life! XD

Absinthe is normally between 55 and 65%. Stroh 80 is the strongest thing I've ever drunk. As the name suggests it's 80% abv. The next was Especiale 151 Rum from the Dom Rep. 75.5% abv.

Favorite intro.

when the ATF bans home production of moonshine but brewing beer is fully legal

I can imagine it would taste like a really strong Brandy, strongest beer I've ever had was 17%,. I think. Can't remember what it was called as it was a good few years back and it got me pretty twisted!

I had a bottle of Koskenkorva Finnish vodka at 60%, duty free from Helsinkii airport a few years ago, which remained drinkable. And also an excellent cleaning product. And in terms of Eisbier, Adventinus Eisbier by Schneider Weisse is probably the best beer I have ever had.

That's not beer. Once a beverage has been distilled or freeze-distillied, it's called liquor.

Fractional freezing and distillation are two entirely different processes, so the term "freeze distillation" is confusing. With fractional freezing of beer you are creating water ice crystals and removing them, leaving the dissolved solids and alcohol behind. But in distillation you are evaporating the alcohol and leaving the solids and water behind. Mostly... with the former, some water is left behind, and you can repeat the process to remove more water, and with the latter some water comes with the alcohol, and you can repeat the process. Eisbock is considered a Reinheitsgebot beer, so it is still beer.

Once something has been distilled, is it even a beer anymore? Wouldn't it be a liquor?

"Are you crying Brad?" "Yeah" 😂 You guys are awesome. Cheers! 🍻

I want to try it!

Hey, there's Navy Strength Gin which are minimum 57% Great vid guys!

Well in fact , what is strong beer- answer , Whiskey :-) xx

Barrel Proof Whiskey, Navy Strength Gin, Navy Strength Rum, Absinthe are all around 55% or more and most liquors are distilled above that.

Never had the chance to try Sink The Bismarck!, but I actually quite enjoyed Tactical Nuclear Penguin.

I remember trying tactical nuclear penguin and thought it was genuinely horrible. Sink the Bismarck was delicious though.

Tears and a numb tongue??? As a whiskey drinker, 57.8% abv is just starting to be considered high proof. LOL Nice vid y'all!! Loved hearing about ice distilling.

For liquor, take your "proof" and divide by 2 to get your percentage.

Is it safe to ice distill to that high a percent? can you remove methanol with the ice?

Stroh rum comes in 60% and a whopping 80%

HEY! You guys did the supermarket brewing with Alex French Guy Cooking, right?

Think I’ll stick to a DIPA 😆

There’s Tatratea at up-to 72%. A lot of rums go up to 70-80%. There’s also absinth at up-to 90%. So yeah, there are a lot of higher alc. drinks, but you only drink 2-3 of these and you’re done 😬

wait wait wait, I thought Brewmeister held the record with "snake venom" at 67.5% no?

Whiskey over here in America can be had at around that strength or stronger if you go to the right stores. Total wine tends to have a bunch of barrel proof bourbons, as well as other stores in my area.

No such thing as ice distillation. It's called fractional freezing or colloquially "jacking". It's a concentrate, not a distillate.

You are very near !!! Nice video....

11:50 they open the bottle 😂😂😂

I had a rum that I described as tasting like a very reduced beef stock.

So where do I get one?

Just a heads up! I underStand why you would think whiskey doesn’t get above %40 ABV, as that is the range where many bottles can be found. However, finding a whiskey that is over %60 ABV is extremely common. It know as “cask strength” or “barrel proof.”

... u can do a similar thing to hard cider to make it "harder"... :)

Brewdog, The result of internet memers creating a beer company. Terrible flavours but funny names and wacky strengths.

Umami, volatile, soy sauce flavored beer?? I’d try it!

Is it better than Miller Lite???

Good tip for spirits tasting - breathe out after swallowing, which diminishes the ethanol and allows you to taste / smell off the palate he more subtle characters. Of course that said, once the soy sauce kicks in it’s hard to enjoy anything else!

Oh wow that's cool

Let me point out that any freeze distilling process leaves a lot of methanol and other bad stuff in there. When you distill using heat and/or vacuum, you can discard the head, the first bit to boil off and condense, and get rid of a lot of the methyl badstuff, because different compounds have different boiling points at a given pressure. one or two shots of that stuff isn't going to hurt you, if you don't make a daily habit of it. Same as Apple Jack. Try a session of apple jack and you will probably experience a hangover of epic fury. I dare say any triple or quadruple or more freeze distilled liquor will be as bad or worse. Take this stuff in moderation, and treat it as the novelty that it is, not as something that you really ought to drink as much of as you want. I can't imagine it being very good to taste, either, but you could probably duplicate the taste by fermenting a VERY heavy wort to yield something in the mid-teens with a bit of sugar left over, then cut it with everclear, maybe cask age it a bit. The wort will give you body, the everclear a very clean ethanol addition. Should be as safe as whiskey.

I want to see papanomaly trying this!

About the only thing I have in my stash to compare that to is a bottle of Bookers Uncut, Unfiltered, Cask Strength Bourbon at a whopping 63.85%. It will melt the hair right off of your tongue!

I think the strongest beer my dad has brewed is about 5.5 and 6% naturally. He has never tried freeze distilling though, not worth his time for the most part.

Snake Venom : *Laughs in 67.5%*

To paraphrase Monty Python... It turned me into a Newt.

I have a Tokyo aging in my fridge. Last one I could find so saving it.

Genuine question: I understand distilling is not allowed in the 'rules of beer' but what about molecular sieve? Is there a reason this method isn't used?

guys, the world's strongest beer is Snake Venom at 67.5% ABV. it's a lager brewed by Brewmeister. so... do your research before.

ISO need this beer.

It would be fun to add a few drops to some soda water in a glass to make your own regular beer.

At this point it's not a beer. It's a distilled spirit. o_O

Is this stuff discontinued? Trying to find a link to buy this.

Nice to hear someone pronounce "bräu" correctly, especially an Englishman.

Bourbon is routinely at that type of abv

As someone who has done the ice freezing thing myself on an apple cider, I'm gonna say that probably costs about 500 dollars and tastes like poison I don't like beer in the first place and I can't imagine intensifying those flavors by that much.

At that strength, it cannot officially be called a beer but a malt liquor.

You should take a look at Latvian brand named "Valmiermuiža" they have special beer called "Valmiermuiža Distilled Baltic Lager" with 42%alc and without any added spirits, its very interesting drink

did you sprinkle a dusting of hops in some vodka? wow!

So can someone please tell me if this is going to be an investment if I don't drink mine???

How do I get my hands on one to review

You boys ever try an old fashioned applejack? You're in that territory.