Mashing at very high temperatures

Two commercial UK microbreweries are mashing at 72 and 74 Deg C (161.6 and 165.3 Deg F). Has anybody used temperatures as high as this?

Not me. That is very high and even outside the usually recommended mashing ceiling temp. I suppose for a particular effect or a recipe with an unusual blend of ingredients it might do.

The first beer was brewed with the help of Jesse Houck and was based on Bitter American, available at the 21st Amendment in San Francisco. This used Apollo hops for bittering and Bravo for flavour, dry hopped with Citra T45 pellets.

The second is Redemption Trinity, so called because it uses Chinook, Columbus and Cascade - the holy trinity of US hops. The mash is sparged with water at 60-65 deg C to ensure that no tannins are pulled in. The mash is also deliberately very thin.

The only time i've seen extreme temps like that is for wild beers, lambics, etc., to leave something for the bacteria after the yeast have finished doing their work.

Curious what those two taste like.

It sounds like they're very specifically trying to prohibit beta-amylase from doing any of it's normal maltose snipping, leaving a very dextrinous wort.
It sounds sort of similar to the lambic turbid mash which also tries to preserve lots of long-chain starches for the bugs to eat later.

Doh! Beaten by pelipen!

I've heard of a few US beers, some very popular, that are around 158...but thats it

Is near boiling water added to the cold grain (similar to a home brew cooler tun) or are they ramping the temperature up with a steam jacket (similar to BIAB). The two tequniques would produce very different worts. See this on mash temp theory

http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2013/01/mash-temperature-theory.html

I've read that Scottish brewers use temps around 158F for their ales.