End of the World!

Yeah, I know it has been a while since I last updated. Sorry.

I’ve read a few things about this recently but Jarrod Greene down at TCU shared a link about it with me so I figured it was time I wrote about it.

In 2007 a couple of guys in Scotland got together and set up Brew Dog. They named their brewery for one of the founders’ dad’s dog, Bracken. They describe him on their website as their “guard dog, head taster, accountant, and general buddy.” I

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bet their financial books are pretty interesting with an accountant like that!

Okay, so now the reason I’m talking about Brew Dog. They brew high-proof beer. Really high proof beer. In July of 2009 Brew Dog started their line of obscenely high-proof beer with Tokyo, a 18% ABV beer.

Then they set their sights slightly higher with Tactical Nuclear Penguin, a 32% ABV beer. Why 32% you might be asking? Because the previous strongest beer in the world was a German one called Schorschbraer that had an ABV of 31%. I’m a little hazy on the details of how they could get a beer to be that high-proof but it looks like the way they do it is to age it and freeze it down to somewhere about -4 degrees Fahrenheit. Throughout the freezing process the beer is decanted occasionally to concentrate the beer, hence raising the ABV. The extremely low temperatures it is stored at for three weeks are the reason for the “penguin” name.

In response to Tactical Nuclear Penguin the German brewery Schorschbrau, released a 40% ABV beer called Schorschbock. Naturally, Brew Dog upped their game and topped it by countering with a witty knockout punch (in more than one way), Sink The Bismarck, a quadruple IPA with a staggering 41% ABV. The name, an obvious homage to the famous German battleship sunk in WWII, is both witty and telling of the fact that Brew Dog will NOT be topped!

At least they won’t be topped by anyone but themselves that is! They have just brewed an EXTREMELY limited release of “The End of the World,” a 55% ABV Blonde Belgian Ale. Only 12 bottles were produced and only 11 of those are for sale. Seven will be a smaller size and four will be larger.

As if the extreme alcohol content were not enough to make this a unique beer, the packaging takes the cake. Each bottle is encased in a taxidermed piece of roadkill. The smaller bottles are encased in the skin of a stoat and the larger bottles are wrapped in squirrel.

Both the stoats and squirrels are now sold out but while available they cost about $775 and $1,080 respectively. So you missed your chance to get the End of the World beer, but you can still get yourself a bottle of Tactical Nuclear Penguin or Sink the Bismarck here.

Also, here is a list of the highest alcohol percentage beers. Just for in case you were curious where some others rank!