Ghost Deer - fermented to 28%?

[Billybob7]

Brewdog's latest beer is a 28% golden Belgian ale. Nothing too strange about that, they've made plenty stronger. But that was with freeze concentration. If I've understood this correctly they are claiming to have fermented all the way to 28% using just yeast, starting with their house strain, moving on to "an American yeast" and then using champagne yeast.

[ame="http://vimeo.com/28692044"]http://vimeo.com/28692044[/ame] The relevant part of the video starts at 2:30.

Is this at all possible? I thought that even the hardiest of distillers' yeasts would be poisoned by the alcohol at around 23%, and they claim to be using champagne yeast? Has anyone gotten anywhere near this level?

I've posted this in fermentation/yeast rather then general beer discussion because I intended this to be a discussion on the process of fermentation and not just on Brewdog's marketing strategy/gimmicks.

 

[hopsalot]

These yeasts strains are engineered over generations to achieve high ABV, Sam Adams Utopias reaches 24-27% ABV.

Its possible, it just aint easy

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Plus if you stage fermentation (i.e. add sugars periodically) you can often push the limits of regular strains so I'm sure they were able to exceed normal limits.