I've seen a few posts recently about brewing really strong beer and there's one thing I just don't get - why?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging or criticising at all - hey, it's your beer, brew it however you like. But can anyone help explain the motivation for brewing such strong beers? Am I missing something, is the beer somehow better when it's stronger? Spending time and effort to brew something this strong seems like a lot of faff just to get hammered so presumably that's not it. Maybe it's just because you can or just for the hell of it, or maybe the technical challenge???
Personally I tend to aim around the 4.5% ABV mark, maybe 5.5% for something like an IPA - I want to enjoy a few beers of an evening but I still need to be able to function the next day. For me anything over about, say, 6% seems pretty strong (doesn't mean I don't or won't drink it, but it's not what I'd choose ordinarily).
I can understand it from a historical point of view, e.g. GH says something like Imperial Stout evolved a higher alcohol content to stop it freezing in the Russian winter.
I don't really understand why Belgian beers are so strong, although on my travels in Belgium and the Netherlands I've noticed they tend not to guzzle their beer so much but rather they sit and savor it. Also they tend to serve the beer in 250 or 330ml glasses rather than pints.
I've had some 8-9% American IPA's before - part of me wonders whether it's just the case that in America more is better, bigger is better so the beers have gotten stronger (and more hoppy) like it's an arms race. As I recall the ones I tried were actually very nice beers but they drunk like they were 5% which can be entertaining to say the least!
From what I've read, it can be tricky to get much depth or body into Mild as it's typically in the 3-4% range so I guess a certain amount of strength is required from this point of view. But my gut feeling is I wouldn't enjoy these 6/7/8%+ beers any less if they were, say, 4 or 5%.
So can anyone shed some light on this? Is there something wonderful about these beers at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10% ABV (and more!) that I'm missing out on, is is it just that y'all like getting hammered?
Cheers,
Matt
Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging or criticising at all - hey, it's your beer, brew it however you like. But can anyone help explain the motivation for brewing such strong beers? Am I missing something, is the beer somehow better when it's stronger? Spending time and effort to brew something this strong seems like a lot of faff just to get hammered so presumably that's not it. Maybe it's just because you can or just for the hell of it, or maybe the technical challenge???
Personally I tend to aim around the 4.5% ABV mark, maybe 5.5% for something like an IPA - I want to enjoy a few beers of an evening but I still need to be able to function the next day. For me anything over about, say, 6% seems pretty strong (doesn't mean I don't or won't drink it, but it's not what I'd choose ordinarily).
I can understand it from a historical point of view, e.g. GH says something like Imperial Stout evolved a higher alcohol content to stop it freezing in the Russian winter.
I don't really understand why Belgian beers are so strong, although on my travels in Belgium and the Netherlands I've noticed they tend not to guzzle their beer so much but rather they sit and savor it. Also they tend to serve the beer in 250 or 330ml glasses rather than pints.
I've had some 8-9% American IPA's before - part of me wonders whether it's just the case that in America more is better, bigger is better so the beers have gotten stronger (and more hoppy) like it's an arms race. As I recall the ones I tried were actually very nice beers but they drunk like they were 5% which can be entertaining to say the least!
From what I've read, it can be tricky to get much depth or body into Mild as it's typically in the 3-4% range so I guess a certain amount of strength is required from this point of view. But my gut feeling is I wouldn't enjoy these 6/7/8%+ beers any less if they were, say, 4 or 5%.
So can anyone shed some light on this? Is there something wonderful about these beers at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10% ABV (and more!) that I'm missing out on, is is it just that y'all like getting hammered?
Cheers,
Matt
