A team of brewers is claiming that they have reached “the end of beer” with their newest creation—The End of History. BrewDog, located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland was started in 2007 by two friends who were tired of the industrialized, uninteresting beers flooding the market. This brewery is known for more than just good craft beer. They pride themselves on experimenting with extreme ABV brews and some equally outlandish marketing and advertising.
In 2009, James Watt and Martin Dickey created the first of their “limited edition, crazy high ABV beers”: Tactical Nuclear Penguin. At the time, it was the strongest beer in the world at 32% ABV. Beating the previously held world record once wasn’t enough for Watt and Dickie. In 2010, they released Sink the Bismark! a quadruple IPA weighing in at 41% ABV. To give you some context, most whiskeys are bottled at 40—46% ABV so BrewDog recommends you drink these beers slowly and in small amounts, like you would a good scotch.
The BrewDog team’s newest limited edition beer—The End of History—is, as the name suggests, their final foray into high ABV brews. At 55% ABV, this brew is already toeing the line of insanity, but BrewDog decided to jump feet first over that line. Their site states: “This blond Belgian ale is infused with nettles from the Scottish Highlands and Fresh juniper berries…each comes with its own certificate and is presented in a stuffed stoat or grey squirrel. The striking packaging was created by a very talented taxidermist and all the animals used were road kill. This release is a limited run of 11 bottles, 7 stoats and 4 grey squirrels. Each ones comes with its own certificate of authenticity.”
We’re all for creative concoctions and inventive flavors, but we wonder if the team at BrewDog have been sampling a few too many of their creations. What do you think—creative advertising or jumping the shark? Or in this case, jumping the stoat?
I would have expected announcements like this around April 1st. I would rather they saved a keg or two from each episode during their TV experiments and allowed us to purchase those by the pint.