Steel Reserve - Distilled Beer?

What is Steel Reserve Beer with 8.1% abv? To read the label you would think the high gravity beer is beer with half the water removed. What gives it that unnatural sweet taste?

Reply to
SlobbyDon
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Distilled beer is whiskey.

High gravity beers tend to have more malt sugars, i.e. lots more malt and (somtimes more) hops to balance the sweetness. Barleywine style ales are a good example. I've never tasted Steel Reserve but I did see it in an ice bin in a ghetto gas station. I would imagine they just dump a butt load of sugar or any other cheap-ass way to get the gravity up. I wouldn't waste my time or tastebuds with it.

_Randal

Reply to
Randal Chapman

I drink it all the time. It is one of the best tasting cheaper beers out there. nice full hops and barly taste steve

Reply to
steve

snipped-for-privacy@swbell.net (Randal Chapman) wrote on 14 Nov 2003:

Kind of. What the original poster talks about is distillation. The process of making an Eisbock -- lowering the temperature until the water in the beer begins turning to ice, then removing some, leaving behind a higher-gravity beer is distillation, and in these here United States a brewer can be fined for doing it to his/her beer, as this is not brewing.

They dump a buttload of adjuncts, typically corn-based, in, yes. More alcohol without those pesky flavors associated with barley malt.

I'm sure Steel Reserve is a perfectly serviceable alcohol delivery system, which, let's be honest, is what 95% of US beer drinkers want anyway.

Witzel

Reply to
Dave Witzel

They can? Isn't that the technique that most brewers used to make "ice beer" during that (now dead?) fad? Granted, some brewers (A-B) in the US didn't remove the ice (for some strange reason) and so the alcohol content remained the same. But, it seems if you're saying that the ATF thought it was distillation and US brewers couldn't do it, then I doubt they'd have let foreign ice beers brought into the country and be sold as "beer", since it would have to be considered a "distilled" product, as well.

Reply to
name

Nah. They can't tell foreigners how to make beer. Here, the practice is considered "not brewing" and is illegal. In Germany, for example, saner heads prevail. Eisbock is so obviously not intended to make hard alcohol instead of beer, and non-US governments recognize that.

Surely you've recognized that the ATF doesn't really have much of a grasp on alcoholic products and terminology, especially beer?

Witzel

Reply to
Dave Witzel

Yes and no. Ice beers produced in the states still ndergo a partial freezing and then filtering from there to remove the ice. However, it's more of a filtering thing here than an alcohol concentration technique like in German Eisbocks. IIRC, American brewers then added water back in to bring the alcohol concentration back to normal levels, thereby falling under the part of the regs that allows concentrated brewing with later reduction by water, a la Coors.

In a sense, so does the US government, since Eisbocks are freely imported into the US. You just can't do it here without a distiller's license.

They're too busy changing their name (but not their acronym, oddly enough) to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

Steel reserve is good tasting compared to Camo. I believe Camo has more alcohol than Steel Reserve. It tastes like it sat in the sun all day and then got put in the freezer.

The interesting beer they make is "Sparks" it tastes like "Red Bull" with

5.5% alcohol. Do not drink Sparks at night unless you want to stay up all night. The only place I ever have seen sparks is at the Florida Beach convenience type stores. I don't think it tastes that bad when you are trying to get the ocean salt water taste out of your mouth. LOL!

-David

Reply to
David

"Steve Jackson" wrote on 15 Nov 2003:

Yes, yes, I should have explained that. I think a previous poster mentioned similarly the "Ice" beers still floating around these days having much the same process.

It's an interesting dichotomy. So Dogfish Head now has a distiller's license; can he sell a beer brewed and then "eisbocked" as beer?

Maybe they'd change their "acronym" to ATFE if they hired really fat agents, so all four letters would fit across their backs in their raid suits.

Witzel

Reply to
Dave Witzel

My understanding of ice beer - as produced in Oz at least - is to drop the temperature to near freezing to induce starch haze and solidify proteins so they can be filtered out - which can only happen at those low tempertures.

Reply to
QuickDraw Steve

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