Taking on the world’s strongest beers is a challenge. Strong beers typically have bold tastes and specified drinking conditions.

While most of the world’s strongest beers can be found outside of taprooms, they’re often rare and expensive. Extremely strong beers can be found the world over, in styles ranging from Belgian blond ale to IPA.

Our list showcases strong beers above 18 percent ABV, with one entry per producer. We’re also sharing brewing and drinking secrets for these powerful concoctions.

For this list, many of these mammoth brews were created using a process called "fractional freezing," which is the same method used to create the Eisbock beer style. Fractional freezing involves chilling the beer to a temperature that freezes the water but leaves the alcohol in a liquid state.

Though the BJCP Style Guidelines feature no beers above 14 percent ABV (Eisbock), the breweries that created these behemoths market their creations as beers. Because of that, they are presented on this list as extremely high-ABV brews.

Mesopotamia and China are renowned progenitors of brewing, but in terms of modern beer history, just about all roads can be traced back to Europe, where beer and its consumption were truly elevated to an artform.

England provides perfect pub culture with bitters and stouts to be quaffed by the mouthful, Belgium and France add lauded lambics, subtle saisons, farmhouse ales and Trappist tipples, and Germany’s contributions just about go without saying… gose and pils. Czech please.

Every beer drinker deserves to take a trip to Europe to imbibe its rich history and stunning array of brews, old and new. We’ve compiled a list of European Beer Tour Companies to help you get there.

Brewtopia Beer Excursions
You’d be hard pressed to find a more knowledgeable, passionate guide for your beer adventure than the mastermind behind Brewtopia, Owen Ogletree, a craft beer expert, world beer traveler, beer columnist and National-ranked BJCP Beer Judge. Through his guidance, you will come to see Europe for the utopian beer-drinking locale that it is. With over 30 years of beer travel behind him, Ogletree is totally tapped into how to maximize your trip while minimizing your expense.

Craft mead ranks as a hot new trend in the alcohol industry, but few imbibers truly understand and appreciate the complexities and defining characteristics of this historic, legendary beverage. How does mead differ from wine, cider and beer? What goes into mead fermentation and production, and how are the varied styles of mead defined?

How Is Mead Different from Beer, Wine & Cidar ?

Wine is fermented from grape or fruit juices. Beer starts with converting the starch of barley grains into fermentable sugars using a hot water infusion, then boiling the sweet liquid with hops to balance the sweetness. Cider basically arises from fermented apple juice. With mead, honey makes up most of the fermentable sugar, and the final alcohol-by-volume (ABV) content can range from around 3 percent to over 20 percent, depending on the style.

Robin Kosoris of Georgia's Viking Alchemist Meadery believes that mead innovation is only limited by the imagination of the mead maker. “Like wine, mead has terroir,” she says. “Wildflower honey is the ‘bees’ choice’ of local flowers and has a distinctiveness based on location as well as time of year. Like beer, mead has a wide variety of styles and lends itself well to creativity.”

Craft brewing has always been rooted in biblical themes. David versus Goliath. A crusade against corporate money changers whose mundane beer had taken over the temple. Authenticity versus the idol of heavily advertised American premium lagers.

But these days, it seems craft’s high-road themes first established by homebrewing are getting slightly sullied, perhaps inevitable for a cultural movement that is now an industry. Due to the explosive increase in brewery start-ups, craft brewers are spending much of their time competing against one another—whether it’s on the retail shelves or in pursuit of the best hops. These “in-house” problems don’t include the competition against formerly independent brewers now owned by the macro Goliaths, proving to be a headwind when it comes to success at taps and on retail shelves.

On the other end of the spectrum, well-known craft brewers have garnered headlines by going out of business or reorganizing. With hard seltzer and cannabis beers turning many heads and joining the already stiffer competition from spirits and wine, is craft’s bubble bursting under competitive pressure? Will the originators of America’s flavorful beer category have to reinvent themselves yet again?

London is one of the greatest cities in the world. Replete with a storied history and a vibrant populace, England’s capital is also home to some of the finest establishments for enjoying a beer, from centuries-old public houses to sparkling new taprooms that have sprung up all over the metropolis.

While a crisp gin and tonic still might be the most recognizable current beverage for Anglophiles around the world, pubs are better known for their selection of British ales and lagers – as well as the local craft flavor of choice.

On this list of the top 20 places to drink beer in London, you’ll find a variety of different watering holes, including some notable landmarks dotted across London’s striking skyline. There are also multiple historically significant pubs, a few newer craft breweries as well as one notable storied brewery that’s called London home for over 170 years.

Read on to explore The Beer Connoisseur’s list of The Top 20 Places to Drink Beer in London.

(Disclaimer: This list is not in best-to-worst order, as all of these establishments are equally worthy of  visiting should you find yourself in the great city of London.)

Anchor Bankside

Urban Artifact’s home in the Northside neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, was a house of worship for the first 140 years of its existence. Some would argue it still is, with the brewery’s fruited sour ales earning praise and devotion from the region’s beer faithful. 

Taking up an entire block on an industrial side street, the church property that houses Urban Artifact was built in 1873 as St. Aloysius Catholic Church, though for most of the next century it was home to St. Patrick Irish Catholic. After a short period as a cookie factory, it was purchased by the founders of Urban Artifact in 2014.

“I can’t believe how much the space has changed since then,” says co-founder and chief of strategic development Scotty Hunter as we stand in the taproom in the church basement. “We did all this on a boot-strap budget.”

Baerlic Brewing in Portland, Oregon has announced the release of Punk Rock Time IPA, a fresh hop IPA brewed with Strata hops.

 The full release from the brewer is below.

PORTLAND, Ore.— Baerlic Brewing released Fresh Hop Punk Rock Time IPA release on Tuesday, September 3 at 4 p.m. at its southeast Portland Brewery & Taproom.

About the Beer

This version of our award-winning Punk Rock Time IPA is cold condition’d on 6lbs/BBL of fresh from the farm Strata hops from our dear pals at Indie Hops. Packed full of watermelon and overripe tropical fruit and just the right amount of that fresh hop ‘green’ note layered over a soft and crisp malt body. And damn it if we don’t say, this is friggin’ delicious! 6.2% ABV

About the Process

Fresh hops are best in the Pacific NW because of our close proximity to all the hop farms scattered throughout the Willamette and Yakima Valleys. On the day of hop harvest, we drive down to the farm and pick these freshies right of the conveyer belt that leads to the kiln room—or the room where the hops are dried out to lock in particular flavors/aromas and to create storability for brewing year-round. If not dried out, they will begin to wilt and mold within a short time. And because of this perishability, it is absolutely time sensitive to get the best flavor and aroma in our beer, so we brewers must act quick.

Oakshire Brewing in Portland, Oregon has announced plans to release its Rainbow Sherbet Smoothie IPA for the first time in cans after formerly being a draft-only selection.

More details on the beer can be found below.

EUGENE, Ore. – The Oakshire team is excited to announce the taproom-only release of Rainbow Sherbet Smoothie IPA in 16 oz. 4-pack cans. Prior to this release, Rainbow Sherbet had only been available in draft format during the winter months of late 2018 and early 2019. Oakshire operates two taprooms in Oregon where 60 total cases of this new rendition may be purchased after the 6 p.m. release on Tuesday, September 3: in Eugene, at 207 Madison St. and in Portland, at 5013 NE 42nd Ave. 4-packs of the 6.7% ABV experimental offering are available for $20 each and at a one case per customer limit.