23rd October, 2012
by
Andy Young
A Scottish brewery is aiming for a spot in the Guinness World Records book after producing the world’s strongest beer.
Brewmeister’s Armageddon beer has an incredible 65% abv.
The brewery, which began production earlier this year with a local pale ale, is situated about 25 miles outside Aberdeen, on the estate of Kincardine Castle.
John MacKenzie, who runs the brewery with Lewis Shand, said: “The beer has a viscous quality to it, due to the special freeze fermentation method we use to produce such a high alcoholic beer.”
This process involves cooling the beer to zero degrees during the brewing process; as the water freezes the alcohol does not and then the ice that forms is removed, leaving a very strong beer.
Shand said: “The phrase ‘delivers a punch’ doesn’t quite cut it. ‘Delivers a supersonic charged explosion and conveys the taster to drunkville’ is probably more appropriate. It really is a powerful beer.”
The beer will be launched at the Inverness Beer Festival on 3 November where it will sell for £5 a 35ml nip. The brewers recommend drinking it in small quantities, rather like a brandy.
Shand added: “Lots of people drink half pints with a spirit, but now they can have our beer with their normal pint instead.”
Armageddon is the latest beer in a long-running battle to take the title of world’s strongest beer. Three years ago BrewDog kicked off the battle with their Tactical Nuclear Penguin, which was a 32% abv beer.
This started a tit-for-tat exchange with German brewers, Schorschbräu, and these two breweries created a number of beers, each with a stronger abv than the last.
Then in 2010 Dutch brewer Koelschip put out its “Start the Future” beer, which had a 60% abv. That stayed as the strongest beer until the boys from Aberdeen came along with Armageddon.
Check out the world’s 10 strongest beers.