Most of the traditional beer styles can be traced to The British Isles, Germany, Belgium and Czech Republic, among other regions/countries of the "beer belt". Czech Republic is probably known best for Bohemian Pilseners that are generally moderate to low in alcohol; and The British Isles, Germany, and Belgium have, arguably, brewed the strongest beer, traditionally.
At the same time, there's a lot of adaptation and innovation going on in the US and Canada, with traditional styles being blurred, merged, and further developed.
The primary source of alcohol in beer is malt and the stronger beers are naturally malt forward, among other characteristics like esters and phenols in European beers, massive hop presence in Double IPAs, American Barleywines etc. However, any style that more often than not exceeds 10% ABV has strong to dominant malt character.
Since the last tasting was a lot of fun, I planned another tasting of the strongest beer styles that represented the boldest the world had to offer, keeping the uniqueness in mind. As argued above, the regions selected were The British Isles, Belgium, Germany and North America, and after a little thinking I zeroed down to the following styles and examples. I am providing brief descriptions and links to the sources:
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| Left to right: Bourbon County Stout 2009, J.W.Lees Harvest Ale 2002, Rochefort 10 bottled 2010, Aventinus Weizen-eisbock bottled 2010 |
English Barleywine (from The British Isles)
Usually the strongest ale offered by a brewery and normally aged significantly prior to release. Very rich and strongly malty; intense and complex; strong notes of dry fruit, dark caramel, toast, toffee, molasses, soft alcohol, and perhaps vinous notes because of oxidation during aging. Big bodied and generously hopped to balance the malts, that still dominate the hops, especially with age. Martyn Cornell writes that Barleywine was never a style per se, or for that matter there were no rigid styles and some brewer happened to call their old ale Barleywine (the adjective "old" might have come because of aging potential/practice). Beer sampled at the tasting: J.W.Lees harvest ale (bottled 2002)
Belgian Quadrupel (from Belgium)
Very complex with malty sweetness and caramel/toast/bready character, esters, high alcohol and optional spiciness, that are derived from Belgian yeast strains. Notes of dried fruit, peppery spice and soft, perfumy alcohol are present. Another notable character of these ales is relatively light body that is achieved by using Belgian sugars in the wort: these adjuncts ferment out more than malts would resulting in lower residuals and hence lighter body, especially in the Trappist versions. However, in absolute terms the body is not light by any means. Beer sampled at the tasting: Trappistes Rochefort 10 (bottled 2010)
Weizen-Eisbock (from Germany)
This is not one style but a combination of two styles: Weizenbock (ales) & Eisbock (lagers). Eis- refers to freeze distillation of the base beer to achieve higher alcohol and concentrated, stronger flavors, followed by extended lagering to smooth the beer out. The beer we tried at the tasting was Schneider Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock (bottled 2010) that is closely related to Schneider Aventinus Weizenbock, so it makes more sense to discuss the latter kind and think of the former as a concentrated, stronger version.
Weizenbocks are darker and stronger Hefe/Dunkel-weizens with bock-like melanoidins, and therefore combine the classic banana-clove, and optional bubblegum character of wiezens with melanoidin, bready malt and dark fruit (plums, prunes, raisins or grapes) character of Doppelbocks.
The beer that we tasted is a recreation of an accidental freezing of Aventinus (the Weizenbock from the same brewery) during transport in 1930's.
American Imperial Stout (from North America)
The American Double Stout gets some of it inspiration from the Russian Imperial Stout. Many of these are barrel aged, mostly in bourbon / whiskey barrels, while some are infused with coffee or chocolate. Alcohol ranges vary, but tend to be quite big, and bigger than traditional Russian Imperial Stouts. Most tend to have cleaner alcohol flavors, higher hop levels, and more residual sweetness. Very full-bodied with rich roasted flavors far surpassing normal stouts. Beer sample at the tasting: Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout (bottled 2009)
Here’s a summary of the beers tasted, followed by comments:
| Beer(brewery) | Country | Style | ABV etc. | Beeradvocate |
| Harvest Ale (J.W.Lees) | U.K. | English Barleywine | 11.5% | A; #58/top-100 |
| Trappistes Rochefort 10 (Brasserie de Rochefort) | Belgium | Quadrupel | 11.3% | A; #6/top-100 |
| Aventinus Weizen -Eisbock (G. Schneider & Sohn) | Germany | Weizen-eisbock | 12% | A- |
| Bourbon County Brand Stout (Goose Island) | USA | American Imperial Stout | 13%, 60 IBUs | A; #23/top-100 |
Comments:
All of us liked all of the beers and it’s hard to compare them objectively because they were different styles: dark dry fruit and caramel character was common to the English Barleywine, Quadrupel, and the Weizen-eisbock in the decreasing order of strength. Alcohol was also noticeable in all three but was soft, never harsh. There were still many many differences but the most striking were the apple and clove spice character of the Weizen-eisbock, which was the lightest bodied among the three; the dark vinous and effervescent character of the Quadrupel; and the intense dried fruit and dark caramel character, and strong body of the Barleywine, which was relatively bitter too among the three.
The American Imperial Stout was a wholly different beer that had strong notes of bourbon, chocolate, coffee and roast, and was described by one of us as “almost chocolate milkshake”. Overall it was quite fun and the brief comments above do not suffice as a review but serve to point out the most apparent differences.
I have reviewed all of the above, with Harvest Ale being my favorite. Here are the links to my reviews:
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