High Alcohol Beers and Aging

BY DAVID NUTTALL

ne of the great things about beer is it comes in a variety of styles, each one unique due to differences in a number of factors including colour, bitterness, clarity, aroma, and especially flavour. Nevertheless, its most scrutinized aspect is alcohol content, not because there is such a great discrepancy, but primarily because governments care about it for taxation purposes. While beer can be brewed to various alcohol levels, in reality the vast majority fall in and around the 5 percent Alcohol By Volume (ABV) range.

The reason comes from alcohol being a by-product of yeast's fermentation of sugars. As it turns out, the yeast varieties commonly used by brewers, and the sugars inherent in the most popular grains (barley, wheat, oats, rye, et al), when combined in the volumes of water needed to produce a batch, equate roughly to the magical 5 percent number.

However, when brewers get creative by adding ingredients, using different yeast strains, and altering brewing methods, beer really starts to get interesting. Of course, beers can go lower than 5 percent ABV, but the real fun begins with those that raise the bar.

Beer wasn’t always measured for alcohol content. Although the hydrometer has been around since the ancient Greeks, it didn't become a relevant instrument until the late 18th century. Brewers and distillers began measuring their products for identification and as some form of control, so naturally governments soon began applying tariffs based on alcohol content. As the temperance movement gained steam throughout the 19th and into the 20th century, ABV levels became the determinant between legal and illegal beverages.

Coming out of Prohibition, the 5 percent level or lower became the benchmark for almost all the world's beers. In the United States, it is still not federally mandated that alcohol content be listed on the label or can. In Canada, all beverages containing 1.1 percent or more alcohol by volume must have that percentage shown, according to Federal Food and Drug Regulations.

Since every mega-brewery active throughout the first three-quarters of the 20th century in North America essentially made adjunct-laden lagers, this wasn't much of an issue. The biggest selling "new" style introduced postProhibition was light beer, coming in at around 4 percent ABV. Since debuting in the 1970s, almost every large brewery now has a low alcohol version of one of their popular brands. On the other hand, outside of the occasional malt liquor, very rarely did a beer stray above 6 percent ABV. Even when craft breweries began en masse in the 1980s, they stuck to traditional styles that stayed in the 5 percent ABV lane.

Still, nobody puts (a) brewer in a corner. As soon as craft breweries could expand their repertoire to introduce

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customers to hoppy IPAs and dark beers, high alcohol versions soon followed. Coupled with the return of legalized home brewing in the late 1970s and the subsequent expansion of import beer selections in restaurants and stores, the public became exposed to beer varieties that hadn’t been seen in North America for decades, if ever. Soon doppelbocks, eisbocks, Scotch ales, Baltic porters, barley wines, double and triple IPAs, a whole host of Belgian styles, and almost any beer with “imperial” in its name, led many drinkers into their first foray of near double digit ABV beer. Once a craft brewery reached a certain age of maturity, their versions of these styles would penetrate the market. With the addition of barrel-aged beers, thanks partly due to the growth of the craft distilling industry, the public now had access to more varieties of beers than ever before.

This led to bottle sharing, collecting, and storing. It has long been known that beer changes as it ages; the confusion often lies in what styles work best. To be sure, the vast majority of beer produced

is meant to be consumed fresh, i.e. soon after being brewed. Light coloured, average ABV, or hoppy beer (like an IPA) do not improve with age, and that represents about 95 percent of the world’s production.

Contrastingly, dark, high alcohol (above 8 percent ABV), malt forward, bottle conditioned, barrel aged, or wild fermented beers will all transform over time; it is up to personal preference as to when the most opportune time for consumption is. Levels of acidity and tannic structure will all drop over time, much like they do in wine, and other flavours will develop. However, the timing is like a bell curve, and waiting longer is not always better, as the beer can reach a point where it degrades into a lacklustre muck.

Even so, most abbey styles such as dubbels, tripels and quads, dark strongs, imperial ales and stouts, old ales, barley wines, and ultra strong ales will all handle anywhere from one to twenty years or more of aging. As long as the storage location is cool, dry, and dark, and corked bottles are stored upright, then all you need is patience.

Exploring and aging high alcohol beers can be a worthwhile endeavour if you want to discover a whole new dimension of beers. In the coming months some of these styles will be explored further on these pages and we will also see what versions Alberta breweries have brought to the table.

David has worked in liquor since the late 1980s. He is a freelance writer, beer judge, speaker, and since 2014, has run Brew Ed monthly beer education classes in Calgary. Follow @abfbrewed.