The Newest "Strongest Beer"

BrewDog, the Scottish brewery that is doing its god-damnest to outdo all other contenders (Dogfish Head, Hitachino Nest, Stone, Unibroue, Three Floyds, you name it) for the Brewery With The Most Attitude, has sent me a press release/blogpost for its newest beer, Tactical Nuclear Penguin.  Weighing in at an ABV of 32%, it beats the previous record of 31% reputedly held by German beer brand Schorschbraer.

Before you folks get your knickers in a bunch, be advised:  This beer, as described by the brewery below, is technically illegal to manufacture in the United States, because the process of removing ice from frozen beer to increase alcohol content is considered--rightly so--a form of "distillation":

The Antarctic name inducing schizophrenia of this uber-imperial stout originates from the amount of time it spent exposed to extreme cold. This beer began life as a 10% imperial stout 18 months ago. The beer was aged for 8 months in an Isle of Arran whisky cask and 8 months in an Islay cask making it our first double cask aged beer. After an intense 16 month, the final stages took a ground breaking approach by storing the beer at -20 degrees for three weeks to get it to 32%.

For the big chill the beer was put into containers and transported to the cold store of a local ice cream factory where it endured 21 days at penguin temperatures. Alcohol freezes at a lower temperature than water. As the beer got colder BrewDog Chief Engineer, Steven Sutherland decanted the beer periodically, only ice was left in the container, creating more intensity of flavours and a stronger concentration of alcohol for the next phase of freezing. The process was repeated until it reached 32%.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog on Vimeo.

 Will we get any?  I doubt it.  It may be illegal to make the stuff here, but there are several foreign-made eisbocks and other such products on beer shelves here.  The problem is the limited supply and price:

Of the 500 330ml bottles released, 250 will be available for £30 [$48] with a further 250 available for £250 [$400] – the latter will include a  share in the BrewDog company as part of its ‘Equity for Punks’ campaign which is aiming to raise £2.3m [$3.7 million] to build a new eco-friendly, carbon-neutral brewery in Aberdeen.

 I'm not certain about the international investment laws, but I'm reasonably certain the offer of alcohol with an investment share has to break some Federal investment laws here in the States.......

For a review of one of BrewDog's other ludicrous-extreme beers which, at last report, you CAN get here, see Brad's review of their Atlantic IPA here.

UPDATE:  More from the BBC here.