Yow -- that's a strong beer

[jducoeur]

So dinner tonight was stir-fried pork in black bean sauce; to accompany it, I grabbed the nearest bottle of dark beer in the fridge. Bad choice.

Dogfish Head Worldwide Stout turns out to be an exceptionally strange beer. I took my first sip, and was rocked back by how sweet it was -- completely unpalatable with dinner. I recapped it, and now I'm sipping it after dinner.

About three ounces in, I started to notice a buzz coming on, which seemed preposterous: my alcohol tolerance isn't exactly high these days (I just don't drink all that much any more), but a quarter bottle? I began to wonder about what alcohol level this thing had, and msmemory suggested their website -- everyone puts that sort of stuff on their website nowadays.

18.8%. That's not proof, that's percent. Geez -- I didn't know it was possible to make a beer that strong. Leaves Sam Adams Triple Bock in the shade. This stuff is more like sherry than beer.

It's not bad as a sipping beer on its own, but remarkably strange. (And ferociously expensive: I just realized that that "$9.99" on the label wasn't per six-pack, it's per bottle.) Interesting change of pace, but I don't think I'm going to finish the bottle tonight...

Comments

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

From my favorite web site

http://www.beeradvocate.com/top_beers.php?id=abv

[cellio]

Almost 19%? Wow. We once brewed a mead that was that strong (special circumstances), and we had to hunt a while to find a yeast that was sturdy enough to handle the job. Tasty, but definitely something to sip.