Forum: beer.stackexchange.com
Tags: <brewing><taste><history><alcohol-level>
Title: What is the strongest beer?
Question: I've always wondered what the strongest beer in the world is and how would taste.  Are there reliable historical records of a very strong beer? What would be the highest % alcohol that's Brewable for a beer? And also of course it would be great to know where to get such a beer from.

Answers:
sents: text: There are strains of Saccharomyces Cerevisiae (brewer's yeast) such as WLP099 - Super High Gravity Ale Yeast that reportedly can tolerate up to 25% alcohol by volume.
text: The world's strongest beer is Snake Venom coming in at a colossal 67.5% abv.
text: Sources cite it as freeze-distilled, where the beer is frozen and the ice (pure water) is drawn off, leaving a more concentrated beer behind.
text: Although, comments in the same link cast doubt upon if the beer is truly the abv claimed.
answer_details: author: beer.stackexchange.com/users/112/mdma
score: 23
sents: text: There has been a bit of a battle recently, with Brewdog and Schorschbräu constantly topping each other's efforts: BrewDog Blog.
text: Currently it's a Schorschbräu Schorschbock 57% finis coronat opus, which comes in at 57.7% , beating Brewdog's latest effort: Schorschbräu Schorschbock 57% finis coronat opus.
text: I'd say the strongest commercially viable option (these 50% beers only ever have a few bottles in the batch and cost a silly amount) in the UK anyway, is Watt Dickie , also by Brewdog, which comes in at 35.0% : BrewDog UK.
text: EDIT:
text: Oops, I didn't know about Snake Venom, 67.5% : Brewmeister Beer.
answer_details: author: beer.stackexchange.com/users/608/slugmandrew
score: 14
sents: text: Brewdog's The End of History, at 55% is currently the world's strongest beer.
text: Take a look at the Brewdog Blog .
answer_details: author: beer.stackexchange.com/users/674/user3299408
score: 6
sents: text: I suppose it depends on how one defines beer.
text: Following the German Reinheitsgebot, beer may contain only 4 ingredients: Water Yeast
text: Hops Barly malt Beverages which do not adhere to these restrictions may not be labeled as beer in Germany, and several other countries.
text: To my knowlege, the strongest beer of kind is Schorschbock 57 , an ice-distilled doppelbock with 57,5% alcohol content.
answer_details: author: beer.stackexchange.com/users/685/primo
score: 4
sents: text: This might be a duplicate question , but since as far as I know beer uses fermentation and no distillation, I expect the maximum alcohol level to be around the same maximum as for wine, which I believe is somewhere around the 13% to 15% level (by volume) as this is the level around which micro organisms seem to die .
text: I know some beers in the 10% to 12% range, like the Dutch het Kanon ("the canon") by Grolsch at 11.6% and Grand Prestige by Hertog Jan at 10%, both of which I like.
text: They have a bit of a sweet caramel-like flavour, but I'm not sure if that related to the amount of alcohol in any way.
answer_details: author: beer.stackexchange.com/users/672/peSHIr
score: 2
sents: text: It depends on your definition, commercially available is Kwak, around the same as wine, if you go to the Grand Place it comes in those horse & cart designed bulbous glasses (like a mini yard of ale).
text: Once you go above that the others are all pretty specialist.
answer_details: author: beer.stackexchange.com/users/689/Serpyre
score: 1
sents: text: The strongest beer I know - made without distillation - is a Belgian beer called Bush Prestige, with 13%.Source and description of taste: Dubuisson
answer_details: author: beer.stackexchange.com/users/676/Dave
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
The world's strongest beer is  Brewmeister Beer Snake Venom  coming in at a colossal 67.5% abv.  
The strongest beers without concentration, distillation or other techniques are about 13-15% by volume. Stronger beers such as Snake Venom or beers by BrewDog or Schorschbräu can be 55% or more, achieved by freezing and removing the ice from a beer with lower alcohol content.