Unlike many of my fellow college students, I did not go out to a bar or a party on Thanksgiving Eve. I was informed that T-Day Eve is actually a pretty big deal a day late. I did, however, spend Thanksgiving night talking about alcohol. It was via Gchat — I was in my pajamas and ready to go to sleep by midnight at the latest due to a very deep food coma — but there was still some T-Day Eve spirit in my holiday celebration nonetheless.
I was chatting with a friend who was abroad in Scotland last semester. He is now completely obsessed with all things Scottish and talks about it like he just got off of the plane — you all probably know someone who talks about their abroad experiences like this. He usually rambles on about his host family, the accents and whatnot, but during this particular Gchat he sent me a link to a BBC article about "the coolest thing to come out of Scotland since Gerard Butler," which I swear are his words, not mine. BrewDog breweries has just released Tactical Nuclear Penguin, the world's strongest beer. It has a 32 percent by volume alcohol content compared to the average four to seven percent of most brews.
I read the article completely bewildered. Why would I want to drink a beer that is so strong it apparently tastes like whiskey? With my tolerance for alcohol, I would be passed out after about four sips (I am more than buzzed after a bottle of my beloved Woodchuck cider, which clocks in at a whopping five percent alcohol). When I asked one of my beer-connoisseur housemates about Tactical Nuclear Penguin, he informed me that it is only the latest example of extreme beers, which are known as high-gravity beers to aficionados like him. He also noted, like my Scotland-crazed friend, that extreme beers are "awesome" (he used the word in all its bro-esque glory several times) and that I don't know what I'm talking about when I raised my concerns. Go figure.
Since I was completely oblivious to the world of extreme beers, much like I was T-Day Eve, I decided to do some digging around to learn more about it. Jim Koch, the founder of the Boston Beer Company, coined the term in the late 1990's when Sam Adams announced that it was going to begin brewing high-gravity beer. There's even an Extreme Beer Festival, which just so happens to be taking place in Boston this year on Feb. 20, 2010. It takes some pretty advanced molecular science to produce extreme beer. Beers are capped at 14 percent alcohol by volume in most states, but new fermenting techniques allow brewers to use traditional yeasts but yield higher alcohol contents. Sam Adams Utopias, the latest extreme beer from the Boston Beer Company, is banned in 13 states because it exceeds the legal limit to be classified as beer.
Boston Beer Company first offered Sam Adams Utopias in 2002 and has released new batches biennially, most recently in November 2009. The 2009 Utopias is 27 percent alcohol by volume and retails for a suggested price of $150. The beer is aged for 15 years in wooden barrels, and according to Associated Press reporter Russell Contreras, it resembles a cognac more than a beer when you drink it. There are less than 10,000 bottles of Utopias released with each new batch, and they go for a small fortune on eBay; a recent listing offers a 2007 Utopias for $459.99.
Even though I will probably not be trying an extreme beer anytime soon thanks to the high price and my low tolerance, at least I know about T-Day Eve now — I'll still stick to cider next year.
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Caryn Horowitz is a senior majoring in history. She can be reached at Caryn.Horowitz@tufts.edu.
