McSwiggin'
Well-Known Member
Years ago a local british pub used to carry a beer called Samichlaus. It was brewed in switzerland (I believe) every year on December 6th, then aged for a year before hitting the market. What made this beer special was it's alcohol content (14%!!!! no joke!). The pub stopped carrying it around 12-14 years ago. I think National was the distributor. They said it was no longer available. It just kind of fell of the map. I still have not seen it in a pub since.
Florida has had some very crazy (and stupid) beverage laws which only affected beer, not spirits. They included strict bottle size requirements, alcohol content restrictions and the like. These were all lobbied by the big breweries in an attempt to limit the growing import craze. for instance, it had to be a 12oz, 16oz, 32oz bottle, so most european bottles coming in at 11.2oz were not allowed. The breweries actually had to re-tool and bottle a 12oz just for Florida, so only the breweries with enough money could compete. Good example of this is Fosters Oil cans. I believe Fosters comes in a 24oz can, but it had to make a 32oz for Florida. And all those malt liquor companies couldn't sell a "forty" here, they had to be 32oz. I'm not sure if this is why it went away or not, but it makes you wonder.
It wasn't the best tasting beer, but it wasn't too bad. You kind of acquired a taste after a few (you could only drink a few anyway). My recollection is a sticky sort of teriyaki sauce flavor with rich cherry overtones and great mouthfeel. Very dark in color by the way, amber to almost black (kind of like black cherry soda).
Does anyone remember this? More importantly, does anyone have a recipe stashed away somewhere that attempted to clone it? I am curious to the strain of yeast used to attain such high ABV%.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Florida has had some very crazy (and stupid) beverage laws which only affected beer, not spirits. They included strict bottle size requirements, alcohol content restrictions and the like. These were all lobbied by the big breweries in an attempt to limit the growing import craze. for instance, it had to be a 12oz, 16oz, 32oz bottle, so most european bottles coming in at 11.2oz were not allowed. The breweries actually had to re-tool and bottle a 12oz just for Florida, so only the breweries with enough money could compete. Good example of this is Fosters Oil cans. I believe Fosters comes in a 24oz can, but it had to make a 32oz for Florida. And all those malt liquor companies couldn't sell a "forty" here, they had to be 32oz. I'm not sure if this is why it went away or not, but it makes you wonder.
It wasn't the best tasting beer, but it wasn't too bad. You kind of acquired a taste after a few (you could only drink a few anyway). My recollection is a sticky sort of teriyaki sauce flavor with rich cherry overtones and great mouthfeel. Very dark in color by the way, amber to almost black (kind of like black cherry soda).
Does anyone remember this? More importantly, does anyone have a recipe stashed away somewhere that attempted to clone it? I am curious to the strain of yeast used to attain such high ABV%.
Thanks in advance for any help.
) The google search actually produced a ton of info on the stuff.
