Bi Polar Bear >30% ABV

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MobyMD

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I have recently been fascinated by our Scottish friends Brewdog and their ridiculous eisbeers....tactical nuclear penguin and sink the Bismarck both 30% ABV and above. They make this happen by freezing the beer and removing the water thus concentrating the flavors, sugars and yes alcohol content. I tested this on a few bottles of a 13% RIS that I brewed earlier this year. I removed 75% of the water and it turned out great. Awesome flavor and a nice alcohol bite. I tested the water that I removed and it had a gravity of 1.002. Of course I will be removing some of the alcohol when removing the water be the overall result is concentration. Here is the project:

Bi Polar Bear

8lbs Marris Otter
6lbs Light DME
1lbs Crystal 55L
0.7lbs Light Munich
0.5lbs Chocolate
0.3lbs Roasted Barley
0.5lbs Cane sugar

1oz Galena 60 minutes
0.5oz Brambling Cross 60 minutes
0.25oz Brambling Cross 30 minutes
0.25oz Brambling Cross 15 minutes

WLP001 Cali Ale Yeast (and a lot of it)

Brewed 11/2/12
OG 1.104
FG 1.018
Attenuation 83%
ABV 11.4%

It is now ready to start freezing. I will start in my regular freezer but as the alcohol content increases I will have to get it much colder. I have a small cooler that I will fill with dry ice when I get to the point it will no long freeze in the freezer.

Thanks for reading and I hope you will follow along. Please let me know any suggestions you might have. Thanks.
 
As drinking a regular size bottle of a 30% beer would likely have consequences I found some 7oz bottles to use. I painted them because they were green and I don't like the green glass bottles. The bottom part that looks like sand is a textured spray paint from lowes. Enjoy!

image-3387613174.jpg

image-3026143193.jpg
 
The freezing is going well. Removed half of the water so far. You can really smell the alcohol! Taste is good but strong.
 
amazing bottle art

i've never done anything like this, but i think if i did with a beer this big, i would let it ferment and condition a good bit more than two weeks
 
Yeah, so true. I wish I would have let it sit longer before the freezing process. Although there was no activity in the airlock fir a number of days with stable gravity. Brewdog ages this beer in oak barrels for 15months before freezing. I will be adding some dark oak chips after the freezing before I bottle.
 
Very intersesting thread, I am very curious how this turns out. Subscribed

Bottles look great.
 
Ok the freezing is done!! There is only one gallon left after removing a little over five gallons of water. The gravity is now up to 1.050. Thick I know, but this is a one to sip with a cigar not one that you would guzzle. I have some dark oak chips soaking in it right now.

Hard to tell what the Final ABV actually is. I will work in trying to figure that out. If any of you math gurus want to take a whack at it go right ahead. I started with 5 gallons of 11.5% and took off 4 gallons of mostly water. You can definitely smell the alcohol and a quick taste warmed the back of the throat like a nice brandy.
 
Not to be a party pooper but freezing is a form of distilling which is frowned upon here. However, I am going to try this recipe!
 
At 11.5% for 5 gallons...
.115 x 5 = .575 gallons of alcohol
.575 / 1 gallon = .575

Roughly 57.5% not counting any alcohol you may have removed during the freezing process.
 
Yeah, I also had some concerns about it. Before I brewed it I looked up some info about freezing. It is considered concentration not distilling because I am removing the water not the alcohol. So legally I think I am fine.
 
Thanks for the calculation brewingbound. I only wish it was 57%. I am sure I lost some alcohol with the water....who knows how much though. Drinks that are 40% and higher will light on fire. I tried to light it with a torch and it didn't go so we know it is under 40%.
 
I'm curious, how did your hop bitterness play out? You hopped this like a normal beer, but then concentrated it. If I tried this, I don't think I would even use hops, or perhaps just a small amount.
 
Dbsmith, that is a good point. Yes the hop bitterness was concentrated too but so was the malt flavor and the leftover sugars. So over all it should still feel balanced. The small taste I had was not overly bitter. I'm afraid if you didnt use hops It would taste like malt syrup.
 
MobyMD said:
Thanks for the calculation brewingbound. I only wish it was 57%. I am sure I lost some alcohol with the water....who knows how much though. Drinks that are 40% and higher will light on fire. I tried to light it with a torch and it didn't go so we know it is under 40%.

Actually now that I think about it, what I did was a pretty bad estimate for freeze concentration... That flame test was a really good idea though. Hope you get it figured out
 
The water content that was removed, did it have any flavor or color? I am sure with some age from the oak, it will be delicious.
 
Roguemc, the water that was removed did have color and taste. It tasted quite good actually (although very thin and no hint of alcohol). It tasted and looked like stout flavored water. After the first two freezes the beer didn't freeze solid and was more slushy. I let it drain until what was frozen turned white or at least got much lighter (which I hope means it was mostly water). I thought about saving it for something but I couldn't think of what to do with it. Ha ha I guess I could have bottled it and had it for people who wanted a beer but not the alcohol!
 
I took another very small taste and it is already very oaky. I dont want that to over power the other flavors so i might not leave that in much longer. I figured it would go fast because I put 1oz of Dark Oak chip in only 1 gallon. It had a distinct oak flavor but hints of some citrus, fruit, black currant, coffee and chocolate. I think the flavors will mellow and meld with time. I will also take some time for the alcohol bite to settle down and not slap you across the face.


Depending on how this one turns out I will have to try it again do some of the suggestions like letting it condition longer and saving the discarded liquid. I also have a recipe clone from Brewdog that is one of their DIPAs. I am considering freeze concentrating that one next time. Although that would just be punishingly bitter.
 
You are planning on bottling this. Will it be still or are you planning on some sort of carbonation? Obviously no yeast will survive in a solution like that.
 
Bknifefight, it will not be carbonated. It will be bottled as is. The plan is for it to be sipped as you would a brandy or a whiskey. I have found with imperial stouts that I like a little lower carbonation. For something like this though, I think carbonation would distract from all the flavors that I want to come through.
 
Interesting. This is a really cool experiment you've done and I appreciate you sharing your experience with us here.
 
HAHA! I really appreciated this post because, in college, my room mate and I would make cheep wines out of anything we could find and "distill" them in our freezer to concentrate them. We had no idea what we were doing and the brews always ended up terrible, but our technique was pretty solid and highly effective!

Question:
Do you carbonate or drink this flat?

Keep up the good work!!
 
Woodhokie4, I have not actually drank this yet but it will not be carbonated. Like was mentioned above there are no yeast that could naturally carbonate it and I don't want to force carbonate it. That is a great story about college....aaaa dorm room fun.
 
I bottled one bottle early to take with me for Thanksgiving to give to my father-in-law. Should be able to get around 20-21 7oz bottles total. Gosh, I spent a lot of money to only end up with 20 bottles. It should be worth it though. I can see why Brewdog charges like $80 a bottle for their tactical nuclear penguin.
 
Well we drank a bottle and all I can say is....wow!! The look: dark, clear, no head (not carbed), very lightly coated the glass when you swirled it. The taste: you notice the alcohol right off at first, then you feel the smoothness, very fruity, oaky (not too strong), nice mild roast flavor, amazing! It will definitely get better as it ages. My final guess at the ABV is around 35%.
 
Very nice. How much money do you suppose went into this recipe and what was the final price per bottle?
 
Bknifefight, the total cost for this recipe with supplies (minus what I had) and some equipment (jugs for freezing and dry ice) was $80. So the resulting price per bottle ended up being $4 per 7oz bottle!
 
I had one of these last night to see how it was coming along. The alcohol burn is starting to mellow some. It is so smooth! The fruitiness from the hops are really coming out. Now I just need to give this the time that it needs to really become great. I need to put it in the back of some closet and just forget about it for like 5-7 years. Cheers!
 
I put it in the frig for about 10-15 minutes before I drank it. It was cool but not cold. I sipped it in a whiskey glass.
 
My bottles got an honorable mention in the BYO label contest. Also I tasted another one of these after a few months and it has smoothed out and is incredible.
 
Well it has been two years since this project started. I have five bottles left. I had one the other day with friends and it was such a special treat. The flavor is about the same but the smoothness has greatly increased. It goes down really nice. Still has a good roasty backbone with hints of fruit and oak. I am getting ready to move to Austin in the next few months so I will wait to brew it again until I settle there. This will be one of the first beers I will brew so I can set it back for aging.
 
Very interesting thread and congrats on the results.

Next batch are you going to do 1 five gallon again or step up to 2 or 3 five gallon batches?
 
Well it would definitely made it more worthwhile to have more than 20 bottles when I was finished so I will consider doing that. That would be an expensive afternoon (but well worth it)!
 
The bottle art is awesome. Not sure of the process but that is because I don't know much about it.
 
Bknifefight, the total cost for this recipe with supplies (minus what I had) and some equipment (jugs for freezing and dry ice) was $80. So the resulting price per bottle ended up being $4 per 7oz bottle!

Honestly if it was made and bottled by Sam Adams it'd probably cost 80 bucks a bottle. So a pretty good deal yo.

Very interesting thread, I'm curious about doing an ice beer(did 1 ice beer that came from an infected batch so I was just experimenting with technique). Did you move the beer into separate jugs then freeze it? It's dead of winter already in Wisconsin here so I have the perfect blast chiller(just wait a couple days and there will probably be -40F wind chill nights). When I thawed my batch out, I wasn't concerned with oxidation as it was just a for funnies experiment, did you ever notice oxidation? Or was the abv so high it dominated the off flavors?
 
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