Curiosities from the world of the truly bizarre
The world of beer has long since moved on from a choice of just lager and wheat beer – due to the triumphal progress of the craft breweries, beer is being enriched with fruits, herbs, spices, chocolate, and many other aromas, some of them rather fanciful. But even in this already-offbeat category there are some truly extreme cases: curiosities that go beyond any boundaries of rationality and sometimes even of good taste. There are a few I felt impelled to share with you:
Brewed to match your DNA
Let’s kick off with something harmless: a beer perfectly matched to your own taste preferences? Sounds heavenly. The Meantime Brewing Company in London has taken precisely this idea on board, and lo and behold: for a trifling 25,000 pounds you can have them brew you a beer that matches your own DNA-based taste profile. After all, this then buys you 12 hectolitres of Meantime Bespokes (minimum purchase quantity), you can think up your own name for the genetically fine-tuned concoction (or elixir, presumably depending on the DNA involved?), and co-design the barrels. The philosophical questions that somehow tend to always arise when DNA and beer are involved (“Who exactly am I?” and so on) come free.
Germany’s most dangerous beer
We’re increasingly venturing into wilder waters now: here in Germany there is in fact a highly dangerous beer! Explosion? Poisoning? Death by blindness? No, the threat is merely from the combination of coffee and alcohol – which in Germany is officially classified as a terribly dangerous mixture. The Gruthaus in Münster is allowed to sell the Coffee Stout, which contains ten times less caffeine than a normal cup of filtered coffee, only if it displays an overdimensioned warning. And if that’s not exciting enough for you, you can even book a boat trip as well, and then during the Craft Beer Cruise explore the dangerous world of craft beer. But careful, this is truly something only for wild untamed souls!
Beardy beer
Hair in the soup, beard in the beer? Neither of them sound all that alluring, do they? Here, however, we’re talking about a rather special kind of refinement: the brew for the Beard Beer from the Rogue Ales microbrewery in Oregon is enhanced with a bit of yeast from the beard of Brewmaster John Maier. Delicious! Discerning gourmets are rapturously ecstatic. But in fact it turns out not to be as bad as it sounds. Everything’s been tested in the laboratory, of course – it’s quite safe – and in each brew, of course, there’s only a minuscule amount of beard. In terms of taste, it’s said to be a highlight – whether this is despite or because of the beard hair is best left to the individual’s imagination.
Galactic beer
To finish up with, here’s something really way out: beer from outer space! Everyone’s heard of space tourism, of course – meanwhile you can shoot anything out into the universe that is too dozy to escape its natural predators in time. This is seemingly what the brewers at Ninkasi Brewing Company thought too, when they saw the yeast lying around, and there and then sent it off to explore new worlds. With a sprinkling of stardust, the yeast returned safe and sound from far-off galaxies, and is now lending Ground Control that little bit extra. A truly extra-terrestrial beer experience!
So have you ever seen, tasted or heard of something wacky from the world of beers? Feel free to tell us about it, I’m looking forward to reading your stories in the comments!
