The ABV Atlas

The Old Gods are not beasts. That is what makes them different from everything beneath them. They are gods – the immense and terrible powers of religions that have faded from the world, once worshipped and then forgotten, still waiting beyond the edges of memory, ancient, patient and no longer receiving prayers. They reside in the 28.0–28.9% bracket because beer at this strength has transcended the status of a monster and become something one might almost feel obliged to kneel before. It is less a beer to be consumed than a presence to be approached.

Mere steps from the peak

Only the 29.0–29.9% band and the open-ended 30% summit stand above this one. Twenty-eight percent therefore lies almost at the roof of the Atlas. It is a strangely quiet place: very little lives here, and almost everything that does was created with extraordinary deliberation. There are no casual or accidental inhabitants, only drinks designed to test the limits of fermentation, barrel ageing, blending or freeze concentration. These are offerings brewed as much to be contemplated as consumed.

The old offering

Only one drink at this strength is currently found within the Hop Horizons collection: Old Crossed Mead, an English honey drink recorded at 28.0% ABV. Mead belongs to one of humanity’s oldest families of fermented beverages and has long associations with ritual, feasting, poetry and the gods. That makes its presence among the Old Gods feel entirely appropriate: a honey offering placed close to the summit of the Atlas.

Its exact production method, however, should not be assumed. No surviving producer description or ingredient list has been found to demonstrate that Old Crossed Mead reached 28% through fermentation alone. Given both its extraordinary strength and its origin with the Chester Whisky & Liqueur Company, fortification, blending or the use of a honey distillate remains possible. Until firmer evidence appears, it is best treated as a 28% mead of unknown production method rather than as proof of natural fermentation reaching this height.

The modern apotheosis

This is also where the most famous extreme beer of the modern world spent much of its life. Samuel Adams’ Utopias appeared at 28% in its 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023 editions. Each vintage blended exceptionally strong beers of different ages and matured them through its own selection of bourbon, cognac, port, sherry, Madeira, aquavit, Carcavelos, Pineau des Charentes and other casks. The precise blend and the age of its oldest components changed from release to release, so Utopias is always best understood by vintage rather than as one unchanging beer.

Utopias is not the only beer to have reached this strength without freeze concentration. BrewDog’s Ghost Deer was fermented with three yeast strains and aged in six different oak casks before being served from a bespoke tap made from a stag’s head. Around these fermentation-and-barrel experiments stand the products of the cold laboratories: freeze-concentrated creations from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Russia. The ancient honey drink, the barrel-aged strong ale and the modern ice concentrate all arrive together before the Old Gods. The old way and the new, both aiming at the sublime.

Below is whatever Hop Horizons has actually logged in the 28.0–28.9% range, broken down strength by strength.