Beers from 27.0–27.9% ABV
The old things, from before the gods. Beer that has become something else entirely.
The 27.0% to 27.9% band... older and stranger than almost anything below it. One lone eisbock sits logged here at the time of writing on Hop Horizons, in a wider world ruled by freeze-concentration and by the most famous beer-that-became-a-spirit ever made.
The Elder Beasts are the ancients – older than the gods themselves, older than any known monsters, survivors from an age long since passed. They are not necessarily evil, nor even antagonistic – just ancient, relics so distant from the present that they have become almost impossible to comprehend. They suit the 27.0–27.9% bracket because beer at this strength has travelled so far from its original form that it seems to belong to another age, another category and almost another kind of drink.
More than a quarter alcohol by volume. At this level, the word “beer” is being asked to carry an extraordinary amount of meaning. The liquid may have more in common with liqueur, port, sherry or brandy: something poured sparingly and sipped slowly after dinner. It may be still rather than carbonated, deep brown or red in colour, and filled with flavours of dark fruit, caramel, oxidation and old wooden barrels. It has very little in common with a pint of ale, even though malt, hops and fermentation still lie somewhere in its ancestry.
This is the native territory of perhaps the most famous beer-that-isn’t-quite-beer ever made: Samuel Adams’ Utopias. The 2007, 2009 and 2011 editions were each released at approximately 27% ABV. The 2009 vintage has occasionally been reported more precisely as 27.5%, although Boston Beer’s own historical material describes these releases as reaching 27%. Utopias is an uncarbonated blend of extraordinarily strong beers aged for years in bourbon, sherry, port, Madeira, cognac and other casks. Released in a ceramic bottle shaped like a copper brewing kettle, it is presented and served more like an old cognac than an ordinary beer.
Utopias was not the first strong drink ever derived from beer, but it became the great American statement of the form: a sustained attempt to discover how far fermentation, blending and barrel ageing could travel without deliberate freeze concentration. The 2012 tenth-anniversary release climbed above 29%, so it belongs later in the Atlas rather than on this page.
Most of the remaining 27% world reaches the same destination through cold. Belgium’s BramBrass, with I’m Vanilla, Baby, and Russian experimental brewers including Ability Brewing Project, AF Brew, Brewlok and Mędiæval Bardcore have produced freeze-concentrated stouts, Baltic porters and even meads at this strength. Utopias arrived through unusually demanding fermentation, blending and years in wooden barrels; the cold laboratories arrived through subtraction. Two very different roads lead to the same impossible number.
The beers below have been reported within the 27.0–27.9% band but have not yet been logged on Hop Horizons. Schorschbräu’s 27.0% Poker Face is omitted because it is already present in the collection.
Samuel Adams / Boston Beer Company
The vintage with which Utopias entered the 27% realm. Highly fermented base beers were blended with older liquids and matured in an assortment of barrels, producing an uncarbonated drink closer in presentation to port or cognac than conventional ale.
Samuel Adams / Boston Beer Company
A blend containing beer aged for as long as sixteen years, with bourbon casks joined by finishing barrels associated with port, sherry and other wines. Contemporary sources sometimes give this vintage as 27.5%; the brewery’s broader historical account rounds it to 27%.
Samuel Adams / Boston Beer Company
Officially released at 27%, this edition blended liquids aged for up to eighteen years. Bourbon, sherry, Madeira, port and other casks supplied layers of vanilla, maple, cocoa, spice, nuts and dark fruit. Boston Beer recommended serving it at room temperature in a two-ounce pour.
BramBrass
A Belgian freeze-concentrated stout built around vanilla. Its playful name conceals a formidably dense beer, with the stout’s malt, roast, sweetness and added vanilla all intensified alongside the alcohol.
Brewlok × Heartly × Пинта Мёбиуса
A 13% Baltic porter placed in a low-temperature chamber and concentrated until it reached 27%. Its Russian name roughly conveys fury or ferocity, followed by a play on being frozen solid and frozen out – an especially suitable title for this cold-created monster.
AF Brew
An exceptionally strong experimental release from the St Petersburg brewery, constructed through freeze concentration. Public information is sparse, which is characteristic of this territory: some of its inhabitants survive principally through specialist records and drinkers’ check-ins.
Ability Brewing Project
A repeatedly frozen imperial chocolate stout conditioned with caramel, roasted coconut, bourbon vanilla, cocoa beans, Biscoff biscuits, roasted almonds and cognac-soaked wood. At this point, “stout” has become the foundation for something approaching an elaborate dessert liqueur.
Mędiæval Bardcore
A reminder that the upper Atlas is not populated solely by stout. This freeze-concentrated spiced mead was made with blueberry, vanilla pods, Jerusalem artichoke and purple loosestrife, using a barrel-aged cyser as part of its foundation.
Below is whatever Hop Horizons has actually logged in the 27.0–27.9% range, broken down strength by strength.
Bars are on a 0–100% scale; a missing bar (—) means no scored beers at that strength, not a score of zero.
1 unique beer · 1 not yet scored
No beers at exactly 27.1% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.2% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.3% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.4% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.5% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.6% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.7% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.8% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.
No beers at exactly 27.9% ABV have yet been added to Hop Horizons.