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Raging Bitch is made by Flying Dog brewery whose art is done by Ralph Steadman - well known for his collaborations with Hunter S Thompson. I started drinking it
by pjm331 3y ago
Raging Bitch is made by Flying Dog brewery whose art is done by Ralph Steadman - well known for his collaborations with Hunter S Thompson. I started drinking it because of that fact after reading Fear and Loathing for the first time in college. It’s also nice and strong - 9% iirc
- eyelidlessness 3y agoAh, I had no idea about the artist! It came to mind because it’s pretty representative of the general theme I noticed, but also because the art was definitely striking in its own right.
- girvo 3y ago> It’s also nice and strong - 9% iirc As all good stouts should be, in my humble opinion! My all time favourite beer is the BrewDog, Nogne and Mikkeller collaboration stout: the Black Tokyo Horizon. It's 17.2%!
- xarope 3y ago17.2%?!? That led me down the rabbit hole to find out beers with very high alcohol content. Apparently Brewmeister Snake Venom, at ABV 67.5%, is the highest.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago67.5% just sounds..bad. I'd be hard pressed to find a liquor that's easily drinkable at that ABV. Something like Utopias by Sam Adams is 28%, and even at that point, you drink it more like a liquor than a beer.
- kodt 3y agoYes those super high ones are usually freeze concentrated (partially frozen, then ice is removed which removes water, what is left is stronger) multiple times to reach such high ABVs. The highest you will see actually fermented is usually around 18-20%, but there are specialty yeasts that can get up to 25%. Then you can get even higher with extended aging in spirit barrels where some ABV is picked up by absorbing residual spirit as well as evaporation increasing the strength. Sam Adams Utopias for example comes in at 28%
- phillc73 3y agoBrewing high ABV beers is actually quite the challenge, especially once it gets above about 10%. The grain to strike water ratio changes so much that lautering often gets “stuck” due to the thick consistency of the grain bed.
- eyelidlessness 3y agoIt’s pretty easy to get into the ~15% range with the right yeast (champagne yeast is the best starting point) and attention to sugar conversion (I wish I could remember the details here but I haven’t brewed for about a decade) and importantly for beer, good ventilation. I had a barleywine that should have been in this range ferment for about 12 hours and it clogged the airlock, exploded the carboy, and generally ruined everyone’s day. But not the way it was supposed to ruin anyone’s day.
- phillc73 3y agoIt's not so much a problem of the yeast and attenuation. Nottingham should be fine up to 14% and for a high gravity beer somewhere above 75% attenuation. The issue is yield and lautering. The mash is so thick, or rather there's so much of it, that proceses need to be adjusted to account for that, and from experience yields are much lower in a typical entry level craft brewing system (400L).
- ofcrpls 3y agoI miss GreenFlash's Barleywine - they put up a retired baseball card-style poster with stats for it.
- eyelidlessness 3y agoWorth mentioning, freezing and skimming ice is a clever distillation process. It’s also illegal under any other circumstances that distillation would be illegal, but nobody much cares.
- kodt 3y ago
- girvo 3y agoThe Tactical Nuclear Penguin is 32% and frankly that was too strong haha but an interesting experience
- kriro 3y agoSince his non-German internet presence isn't great and iirc there's no Wikipedia article abut him I'd like to mention Georg „Schorsch“ Tscheuschner of "Schorschbräu" fame. He's quite the character and famous in German (home-)brewing circles because he's always chasing those high percentages (via the mentioned ice technique called Eisbock in German). His creations include the world's strongest Lager (16%) a pretty stronger Weizen (13%) and his high percentage entry, the Schorschbock (57%).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lmm 3y agoJust a waste IMO. Yes, sometimes I want a strong beer, but sometimes I want to spend an afternoon drinking and chatting with a friend. But I still want something that tastes good in that case!
- girvo 3y agoHardly a waste; I never do the “spend all afternoon drinking” thing these days, and if I really want to, well these strong stouts are excellent to sip over a fairly long period of time because they taste great slightly warmed up
- smcl 3y agoYeah the super-strong ones are fun to try every now and then, but having >2x the alcohol of a normal beer is not something to be taken lightly. I've found myself favouring lower ABV recently - I like drinking beer but I don't really like being drunk and at my age I do not handle hangovers well, (currently fighting through one)
- dagw 3y agoMy favourite thing to come out of the craft brew movement recently is the renewed interest in session beers and generally great beers a 4% or lower. I love being able to drink lots of really nice and interesting beers and just not feel drunk.
- chad_c 3y agoThe industry in Atlanta shifted to these types of beers right around the start of the pandemic. Every brewery here now has a lager, rice lager, or low-abv pale ale. The best is Halfway Crooks [1]! [1] https://halfwaycrooks.beer/ https://halfwaycrooks.beer/
- ubercore 3y agoThose are some heavy hitters, would love to try that collab if I ever find it!
- girvo 3y agoIf you can find it, I can’t recommend it enough. I bought a carton of it, twice, that’s how great it is (in my opinion). Don’t ask how much the carton was though haha
- dfxm12 3y agoDry Irish stouts, like Guinness, are good and despite their reputation, are not (and should not be) anywhere near that strong. They come in at ~4.2% abv, like most "light" beers.
- lamp_book 3y agoI love Steadman’s art but refuse to buy Flying Dog beer since their owner is a giant asswipe (don’t remember the details just something to do with mistreating employees). Steadman also did the art for Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook - highly recommend that though. edit: HST’s story on the Kentucky Derby features Steadman prominently and it’s my favorite of his after/along with Fear and Loathing and Hell’s Angels. It’s probably the most gonzo of the three as well. edit: Corrected Flying Dog from BrewDog
- ginnungagap 3y agoAs far as I know there is no relationship between BrewDog and Flying Dog despite the names
- lamp_book 3y agoOh whoops I meant Flying Dog.
- _puk 3y agoI think you can quite correctly substitute Flying Dog for Brew Dog in the "owner is an asswipe and I won't buy anything from him" stakes: 'BrewDog, the fast-expanding craft beer firm, has apologised to former employees who accused the company and its co-founder James Watt of fostering a “culture of fear” in which workers were bullied and “treated like objects”.' [0] 0: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/10/brewdog-staff-craft-beer-firm-letter https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/10/brewdog-sta...
- smcl 3y agoBrewDog is a sad one for me. It was nice to see a brewery in the region I'm from (Aberdeenshire, Scotland) becoming a worldwide success. But their "punk" aesthetic is a bit cringe for a big corporate company, and the owner turning out to be a dick is a real turn-off and the beer isn't good enough for me to overlook it. There's another brewery in the area that I've been meaning to try out (likely impossible to find in Czech Republic), they've leaned into their Aberdeen identity pretty hard which is cool but idk what their beer is like https://www.fiercebeer.com https://www.fiercebeer.com