Weighs in at 55% ABV

Served in…. dead animals?

Scottish brewers from across the pond at BrewDog have for the past three years been urging the masses to break the conformity of what is generally accepted as good beer. Stating “Beer was never meant to be monotonous or mass produced, which is why we’re doing our damnedest to create the holy grail of craft beers.”

By breaking conformity, they don’t mean just experimenting with different flavors or flashy marketing techniques. Their “Atlantic brew” is aged in seven barrels (after dropping the eighth in the Atlantic, R.I.P.) on a ship for two months in the North Atlantic. Others are aged in sub zero temperatures within an ice cream factory.

BrewDog had set the bar high with the “Tactical Nuclear Penguin,” weighing in at 32% ABV, when German’s SchorschBock challenged them by setting the record to 40%. The Scot’s weren’t going to take this laying down, when BrewDog targeted the “Sausage Munchers” and came back with the “Sink the Bismarck,” once again setting the bar even higher to 41% ABV. After being bested once more by their German rivals, BrewDog decided to end the war and deliver the knockout blow with “The End of History” at 55% alcohol by volume.

“The End of History” is an insanely potent beer served from taxidermized road kill bottles in the form of four squirrels, seven weasels, and one hare. That’s right, no need for PETA lovers to boycott it, as they only made 12 bottles and sold out instantly to buyers in six different countries. The beer was made by freezing the unfinished liquid during the brewing process to separate the water from the alcohol (multiple times) increasing its alcohol content, and went for $765 a bottle.

“The End of History” dons its name from a book named “The End of History and the Last Man” by Francis Fukuyuma, symbolizing the extent of their research in extreme brewing, the “End of Beer’. It is a Belgian ale infused with nettles from the Scottish highlands, fresh juniper berries, and if not consumed responsibly will have you speaking to the dead animals it pours out of, at which point they will probably talk back.

11.05.10