IT is a brewery that is no stranger to controversy, with a previous brew, Speedball, being criticised for its name's alleged links to illegal drugs. But now BrewDog has been criticised as "utterly irresponsible" for producing a beer with an alcohol content of 18 per cent – the UK's strongest beer – and promoting it as a "cure" for binge drinking.
Campaigners and health officials last night condemned the launch of the beer, accusing the brewery of encouraging antisocial behaviour.
The Aberdeenshire-based micro-brewery yesterday unveiled Tokyo*, an oak-aged imperial stout with a staggering 18.2 per cent alcohol content. Each 330ml bottle will contain the equivalent of six units of alcohol – twice the recommended daily limit set by health professionals.
But James Watt, 26, who formed the brewery two years ago with fellow former Peterhead Academy pupil Martin Dickie, claimed the heady beer would help to promote responsible drinking. He said: "The beers we make at BrewDog, including Tokyo*, are providing a cure to binge beer drinking. At BrewDog, we are determined to revolutionise the UK beer scene. Mass-market, industrially brewed lagers are so bland and tasteless that you are seduced into drinking a lot of them. Our hardcore beers are loaded with flavour, bite and body, so consequently you drink less of them."
But health professionals and politicians were united in condemning the brewery's latest creation. Jack Law, the chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, said: "This company is completely deluded if they think that an 18.2 per cent abv beer will help solve Scotland's alcohol problems. It is utterly irresponsible to bring out a beer which is so strong at a time when Scotland is facing unprecedented levels of alcohol-related health and social harm."
Ross Finnie, the Scottish Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, also attacked the super strength beer. He said: "I am not sure at all what place producing stronger strength beer has in a Scottish society where, across all age groups and all socio-economic categories, the medical evidence is that, as a nation, we are drinking too much alcohol."
A spokeswoman for BMA Scotland said: "It is irresponsible of the company to market their product in this way."
But Mr Watt said the company wanted the "change perceptions about beer". He said: "Tokyo* is a connoisseurs' beer to be savoured like a good brandy. We've been challenging people to drink less alcohol, and educating the palates of drinkers with progressive craft-brewed beers which have an amazing depth of flavour, body and character."
Asked whether BrewDog might yet develop an even more potent brew, he replied: "We just want to keep pushing the boundaries with what we are doing. It is a definite possibility."
Tokyo* will be produced in a limited run of 3,000 bottles and will be priced at £9.99.
Zak Avery, a former UK Beer Writer of the Year and one of Britain's leading beer experts, backed the brewery. He said: "To claim that this type of beer is part of the alcohol abuse problem is akin to blaming Michelin-starred restaurants for the oft-reported obesity epidemic.".............
Sounds interesting. May have to try and get one of those. As for all the usual nanny state guff about anti-social behaviour, I'll bet the bottles are about the size of an espresso cup. Besides, what about the fairly well known 14% brew made by monks for about the last 1000 years or so (in a similar price bracket)....
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At £9.99 a bottle, I wouldn't have thought binge drinking would be an option for most people. This is just another shred of evidence that politicians don't want us to have fun. The guys at BrewDog make excellent beer, shame they don't make more of it. A limited edition of 3000 bottles won't go far enough.
Mass-market, industrially brewed lagers are so bland and tasteless that you are seduced into drinking a lot of them. Our hardcore beers are loaded with flavour, bite and body, so consequently you drink less of them."
Doesn't that work the other way around? It does for me anyway *hic*
I'll definitely keep my eye out for this stuff but 9.99 is pretty bloody steep! The strongest beer I ever had was in a little pub in Wicklow, Ireland, 14% proof locally brewed sh!t it was and it came in pints
There used to be a drink they sold in pubs round here called Barley Wine, sold in very small bottles expensive and exceeding potent, only ever had a sip of it once it was not really a wine it was a beer of some kind,reputedly to be only supped by serious plonkies,less serious plonkies drank Newcastle Brown Ale and we normal peeps drank Newcastle exhibition. Dont know if it is still sold or even brewed now one having abandoned pubs many years ago but it supposedly had a very high alcohol content.
But James Watt, 26, who formed the brewery two years ago
Great name for someone planning to get his customers 'Steamin'.
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Mass-market, industrially brewed lagers are so bland and tasteless that you are seduced into drinking a lot of them.
The Scottish politician Kenny Macaskill got into bother with Tennents by calling their product 'cooking lager'.
The problem with a lot of these brews, is that they are chilled almost to freezing and this numbs your taste buds. Which is probably what the brewers hope, to disguise the poor flavour.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, "18% proof" and "18% alcohol by volume" are not the same thing.
"Proof" refers to "proof spirit", calculated according to the Gay-Lussac scale, which, to cut a long story short, assessed potable liquor on the basis of its flammability, which generally occurs at around the 50% ABV point.
Thus "18% proof" actually refers to 9% alcohol by volume, and 18% ABV is approximately 36 degrees proof.
I used to know the head brewer at Watneys’ Mortlake brewery – and before you start knocking, he knew more about beer than any ten CAMRA members put together. He told the story of a Watneys works outing around Kent, on the way back the coach stopped at a country pub where everyone, including a good many ladies, ordered a barley wine, followed by another, followed by a third. They then quite soberly got back on the bus, leaving a very bemused landlord behind. Cue Butch Cassidy - 'who were those guys?'
Mr D - Tuckers ! That was it ! I've asked before on these pages what was that ghastly beer from Gateshead. Mind you, the only time I tried it was in Blyth. Maybe it didn't travel.
In the USA, 'proof' refers to twice the percentage of alcohol (ethanol) by volume, so 36% ABV is 18% 'proof'.
Until 1980, the British definition of 'proof' involved the lowest concentration of alcohol which would support the combustion of gunpowder. This weird definition arose from the testing of navy rum (see 'grog' - Admiral Vernon and his grogram cape, but that's another story). The idea was that if gunpowder still ignited after being soaked in rum, the rum was ok to issue to the lads.
The upshot was that US proof related to ABV as 1:2, while the ratio for British proof to ABV was 4:7 until the typically named French Gay Lussac scale was imposed by the EU, and isn't worth going into.
My own research under increasingly less controlled conditions indicates a relationship between the alcohol content of a beverage and a scale, developed by me, which I call the 'Verticality/Intelligibility Index'.
Typical silly season story. This is what you might called a manufactured controversy, brewed up by so called journalists with apparently nothing to do but create a non story.
Clearly all the critics were contacted by the hack who explained what the beer was. They of course jumped in with both feet and provided the usual soundbytes.
Quote:
Jack Law, the chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, said: "This company is completely deluded if they think that an 18.2 per cent abv beer will help solve Scotland's alcohol problems. It is utterly irresponsible to bring out a beer which is so strong at a time when Scotland is facing unprecedented levels of alcohol-related health and social harm."
Quote:
A spokeswoman for BMA Scotland said: "It is irresponsible of the company to market their product in this way."
Quote:
Ross Finnie, the Scottish Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, also attacked the super strength beer. He said: "I am not sure at all what place producing stronger strength beer has in a Scottish society where, across all age groups and all socio-economic categories, the medical evidence is that, as a nation, we are drinking too much alcohol."
Somehow or other I cannot see this beer turning Scots off from their love affair with Buckfast (15%) You can probably buy two bottles of Buckie for the price of one pint.
Let not the facts get in the way of a good story. It's costs £9.99 a pint. Go to Tesco and see what you can get for a tenner. At least a couple of bottle of wine or enough beer to make the night go very blurry. Plus there's only 3000 bottles being made! Enough to last for a single weekend in a busy pub.
Still I suppose the brewery must be delighted with the publicity.
Tucker, was proper traditional beer it came in gurt great wooden barrels in the time I"m speaking of, you had to have a good landlord who kept his pipes pumps and cellar plumbing up to snuff or the beer suffered went cloudy and big lumps floating round in it, a good pint of Tuckers served by a good landlord was a nice pint,,they got a new manager in my local and the beer went right back,think Tuckers was eventually bought out by Nimos then theyin turn were bought out by Whitbreads,and then we all had to learn to drink chemicals out of cannisters.
Somehow or other I cannot see this beer turning Scots off from their love affair with Buckfast (15%) You can probably buy two bottles of Buckie for the price of one pint
Ah Buckfast. I have a younger brother who swears by this stuff, it gives him the hangover from hell though He also introduced a certain Aussie mate of mine to it and got him hooked. Still, I suppose it's better than that Fosters crap
I agree that the brewers of this Tokyo super beer are in no way being irresponsible and it certainly won't worsen Scotland's alcohol problem. I really can't see your average Glasgow career drinker going out and spending nearly £80 to get smashed on 8 bottles of this stuff when they can do the job for a tenner. If I see this stuff in a pub I'll definitely buy a bottle and at that price it will be 1 bottle and purely as a novelty. I'll probably keep the bottle after I've drunk the beer and put it on display at home.
The Aberdeenshire-based micro-brewery yesterday unveiled Tokyo*, an oak-aged imperial stout with a staggering 18.2 per cent alcohol content.
Knowing a bit about the fine art of fermentation, the 18.2% looks odd.
Normal beer yeasts can survive in an environment of about 9%-10% alcohol before they pack it in. Thus you never see a Belgian beer above 10%.
Wine yeasts can survive in up to 15% of alcohol. There are some mutated versions that have a higher tolerance of up to 18%-20% as I remember.
To me there appear to be three different ways to make this stuff:
Use a mutant strain of wine yeast, which would make it taste like cr@p.
Use normal beer yeast to make a normal beer and then distill it to increase the alcohol content and only slightly degrade the beer taste.
Use normal beer yeast to make a normal beer and then fortify it by adding alcohol to increase its concentration. Leaving the beer taste the same.
Having drunk many a Belgian beer as well as strong English ales I have come to a conclussion that any beer with an alcohol content over 5% is essentialy cr@p.
So if this stuff tastes like cr@p then it is made by the first process. If it actually tastes OK, then it would be the second or third (most likely third)
Once had a beer from Bury St Edmonds--Green something i remember ,which was meant to be pretty potent ,but didnt have much effect.Was sent a bottle a few years later which was very high alcohol content but tasted like a spirit. Looking back ,it was from greens brewery ,but forgotten its name.To get its alcohol content it must have had fortified plonk added to it.
Rumour had it that it was the strongest beer in pomland at the time
Silly. At 4% abv or above, beer must be labelled something else, usually malt liquor or Ale. Blue is correct, but 18%Proof is wrong it's 18Proof, or 9%abv. At 36Proof, you're talking cordial, or liqeuer, not foamy football swill.
Ethanol can not be 100%, it has an affinity for water, and 195Proof is max. Course this Murrica, and we'll even drink French wine, what do we know?
was in Blyth. Maybe it didn't travel.
You can probably buy two bottles of Buckie for the price of one pint.
He also introduced a certain Aussie mate of mine to it and got him hooked. Still, I suppose it's better than that Fosters crap 
