Super-High Alcohol Beer Heads to the U.S.
time.com
time.com
The beer is fantastic.
It's flavourful and complex like a scotch. And you drink it like a scotch too since it's so heavy. If you're a fan of both beer and scotch you should definitely give this one a try. It's not the best beer and it's not the best scotch but it's so unique that it's an experience to drink.
The quote of "Since most drinkers don't check alcohol levels on the label like the expiration dates on a milk carton, some unsuspecting soul with too much money to spare could sip a little too much strong stuff." is just ridiculous. It was obviously written by someone who has never tried or even seen the stuff. Tactical Nuclear Penguin is like syrup. Imagine if Guinness was a few times as thick and heavy. It would be absolutely disgusting to try and chug. And no matter whether you read the label or not before you even sipped, just having it under your nose would tip you off immediately that there's a lot of alcohol in the drink.
Him and four of his friends split one bottle between them for a night. I'm not a fan of strong beer, so I passed, but anyone who seriously thinks BrewDog encourage 'irresponsible drinking' is just trolling.
Scotland does have a huge problem with alcohol, but it's largely down to CHEAP strong alcohol - the white ciders. The kids that cause trouble aren't buying £30 330ml bottles of beer, they're buying £2 3 litre bottles of White Lightning.
As for Bismark - one of my boss's friends bought a share in BrewDog, and then used the shareholder discount to buy six bottles of that, too.
BrewDog seem to have what you might call 'hacker sensibilities'. After the fuss caused by Tactical Nuclear Penguin, they released a beer called 'Nanny State'. It's 1.1% ABV. Their share scheme is also pretty ingenious - people are buying shares not so much as a simple investment, but to be involved with a company that speaks their language.
Canny - and agile - marketing combined with a good product. Good to see.
http://www.stinko.de/images/product_images/popup_images/absi...
90% vol (the pic is 80%) and my god does it pack a punch.
I was in Amsterdam where they sell the stuff in bars, and seeing it on the top shelf, I couldn't resist. The barman told me: "if you drink 3 shots of this, and have a glass of water tomorrow morning, its like having another shot and you'll get hammered all over again." (One shot was €8.50, or about $11.60! Great salesmanship on his part).
So of course I go for 3 shots. The barman lit them before drinking, and I inhaled the fumes through a straw poked in a napkin over the glass to get the full-on effect. All I can remember is drinking 3 shots one after another, with no water or pause in between.
Apparently (this is according to somewhat more sober friends who were with me), I next proceeded to order 3 more shots, and also fired them straight down the hatch. I then got sick a few times, and had to be carried back to the hotel by my drinking buddies. I was so high on absinthe, I actually thought I walked myself home (I can vaguely remember the tree-lined streets bouncing along). The friends then unceremoniously dumped me onto my bed, and left to carry on their night of fun. I remember looking at my watch: 8:00pm. Next thing i remember was coming round, sitting on the ensuite toilet, looing at my watch: 12:00am.
Lesson here kids: Don't do absinthe. Vincent van Gogh cut off his own ear because of it.
Oh and to answer the comment below, I'm aware of what you can get for €50 by windowshopping, but:
a) it wasnt my intention to spend €51 on absinthe, I wasn't aware of what I was doing after shot number 3, plus where I'm from it's €100 minimum when I hit the town
b) I really don't go for that sort of thing. Another funny sight I was a line of guys, all British and members of what I took to be the same Stag party, lined up one after another to 'frequent' the same window. Granted, the image of beauty in the window looked like a Victoria Secret model, but seriously.
Another night, myself and my highly irresponsible drinking buddies ran into two Irish-Americans from Boston in their 60s, (married, with kids, retired) in some random sports bar (we're Irish, which quite stereotypically explains our behaviour). We got chatting, and entertained them with the merry tales of me falling about the place hammered on absinthe and generally causing concern for the local Dutch police.
Anyhoo, to cut a long story short, around 3am, all of us tanked up to bits on absinthe, whiskey and some disgusting piss that passes for lager locally in Amsterdam (definitely not Heineken), we decided it would be a good idea to have a wander around the RLD. At this stage, a New Zealand dentist who "was in the city for a conference" (yeah right) and some other chap (Aussie I think) decided to join us. We wandered for a while, then one of my (evil) mates suggested to the Boston boys that it would be a good idea to check the prices in two nearby windows. (One of the Boston boys goes to me, clearly still rooted in the Cold War mentality: "Is she Russian? Looks like a commie". To which I replied: "No man, it's cool. She's Polish, they're on our side") So the Boston boys head into the two hookers, which is quite a feat considering their age and martial status.
After that it quietened down a bit, we still managed to run into another American who claimed to be exiled from the States by the US Marshalls or something. Sounded BS to me, but he did have the accent plus he gave us an informal tour of the RLD at 4am.
This is all true i swear, even if it sounds like Tucker Max-style bullshit.
Most do; or at least the majority do in my experience. Firstly because it's their revenue stream and secondly because there are quite strict laws for proprietors there.
I looked it up with a friend who goes to Amsterdam a lot more than myself and what they sold you was "against the rules" - there is (or at least was) a limit to 2 servings per customer. Im not sure if that is a law or a guideline (of the kind that if you break it and someone gets hurt your in big trouble).
(I myself love absinthe - but the strong stuff you just have to be moderate about, because it is quite dangerous. One of my friends has a favorite story about a trip to Poland where they drank absinthe and one guy had so much he hallucinated, thought he was an apple (or something) and tried to peel himself. Not nice)
"Normal" (less potent, US-importable) absinthe isn't bad, especially poured through sugar with water. I don't think I'd try black absinthe, though.
(odd article to find on HN though)
That's just sloppy writing.