The ABV Atlas

The Thunderbird is a great supernatural storm-bird found in the traditions of several Indigenous peoples of North America, although its meaning and stories differ between cultures. In many accounts, the beating of its wings creates thunder and flashes around it become lightning. It is a fitting guardian for the 16.0–16.9% band: the altitude at which beer flies into the thin air of true extremity and, surprisingly, its styles scatter across the sky like the broken edges of a storm.

The styles spread out

Lower bands are often dominated by one or two familiar styles, but this is not so at sixteen percent. Here the Atlas finds enormous imperial stouts, sweet pastry stouts, New World barley wines, intensely concentrated German bocks and even an eccentric triple IPA. Alongside them are strong ales that resist any narrower classification. It is one of the most stylistically varied bands in the upper Atlas.

The band’s summit is remarkable for another reason: some of the highest-scoring beers in the entire collection sit at exactly 16.0%. Omnipollo, Vault City, Lervig and Wander Beyond all demonstrate that immense strength need not be the whole point of the drink. In the best hands, alcohol, residual sweetness, roasted malt, fruit and barrel character become parts of something balanced and transcendent rather than merely powerful.

Where the collection’s definitions expand

At this height, beer begins to share the shelf with other brewed and fermented drinks. Sixteen percent lies naturally within the territory of mead, the ancient family of fermented honey drinks, and sake, Japan’s brewed rice beverage. Neither is literally a style of beer, and sake is not an ale, but Hop Horizons deliberately collects them alongside beer. Their presence makes this one of the places where the Atlas becomes a map of related fermentation traditions rather than grain beer alone.

The methods by which they arrive here are correspondingly diverse. A Polish dwójniak reaches its strength through honey fermentation; sake uses the parallel conversion of rice starch and fermentation; the great stouts and barley wines rely on enormous quantities of malt, highly tolerant yeast and, frequently, barrel maturation. A concentrated bock may take yet another road by removing frozen water. The shared ABV conceals profoundly different drinks.

The shoulder of the strength wars

Sixteen percent also forms one of the lower shoulders of the modern strength wars. It was not where the story began – American experiments such as Samuel Adams Triple Bock had already appeared in the 1990s – but it is where names that would climb much higher become visible. Schorschbräu appears here with an early SchorschBock, while BrewDog contributes Tokyo*, Anarchist Alchemist and the anniversary stout Dog E. From here their paths continue upward into the increasingly concentrated releases of the bands above.

At this point, nearly everything demands slower drinking and smaller servings. Even those products sold in ordinary beer cans or bottles contain the alcoholic weight of several conventional beers. They may retain carbonation, hops and recognizable beer flavours, but their natural company at the table is increasingly a dessert wine, port or liqueur rather than a session pint.

A few landmarks beyond the collection

With twenty-three drinks already logged, this band does not need an extensive outside catalogue. These four unlogged beers are included because they represent important historical releases or substantially different routes to sixteen percent. Their strengths apply to the specified editions, since several have varied considerably between batches.

Below is whatever Hop Horizons has logged in the 16.0–16.9% range, ranked and broken down strength by strength. It is a substantial and remarkably varied field – read the styles as closely as the scores.