I purposely stopped and landed my beer in the 16% range, it's wonderful. You could take it higher and the body and hops will back you up especially if you brewed SL's adjusted clone with the extra hops. Let's face it, that's a lot of hops!
I do feel though 16% made a balanced end result for me, 20+ is a little gimmicky - it's fun to brew and the priceless look on someones face when you pour them a pint then warn them the one beer has the same effect as a six pack of bud light is sweet, but even the potential behind a real DFH120 in the end seems blinded by the amount of alcohol in it especially as it warms in your glass.
I'll probably brew a 3gal batch and try to take it as high as it can go but for 5-7 gallons of this expensive time consuming monster, 15-17% is a safe tasty range (IMO).
Alright you guys sold me. Crashing this beeotch this evening after work. Should be back to 1.008-1.010 by then (16.8 - 17.1%). Or would it be better just to let it finish on its own to allow for yeast cleanup activities?
I just can't believe I got this much out of only using 2L starters for both the 1056 and the 099. I usually have a problem with under-attenuation. Now I can't stop the biggest dragon I've ever tried to slay (brew).
Also, after the volume loss (6 gallons at start of boil) between boil-off, SL's hop boil schedule, trub, yeast cake and SL's dry hop schedule, I think I'll be lucky to have 3 - 3.25 gallons left to keg/bottle. Luckily, I was able to Parti-Gyle 4 gallons of a regular (1.055) IPA from the second runnings. Such a waste of ingredients going on here.