Exotic Beers of the World
You have drunk the most famous beers, and now you want to be a little more adventurous (given that you also have money to spare). Here are some of the most exotic and weirdest beers in the world that you may want to try.
Icelandic brewer Borg Brugghús introduces Fenrir Nr. 26. It may not be the first beer to use poop which is burned to smoke malt, but this Indian Pale Ale (IPA) is the first to use sheep poop, which is said to introduce earthy hints in the taste.
Mangalitsa is an American style porter brewed by Right Brain. What’s so exotic about this beer is that it uses smoked pig parts — not smoked bacon, but the pig’s head and bones! The result is a beer which has a taste of smoked ham with hints of roasted dark chocolate… sounds like a Christmas feast!
Pabst is one of the cheapest beers in the US. But in China, it is considered the Rolls Royce of beers, and shares the market status of the high-end brandies and expensive wines. It is blended with German caramel malts and matured in whiskey bottles, and packaged with an elegantly-designed bottle.
A lot of brewers have tried to put their identity on their bottles, but take a different look at brewer Rogue Ales. As the name indicates, the beer is created with the help of the beard. Yes, you’ve read it right, beard — specifically from the brewer’s current brewmaster John C. Maier. It all started from mere ribbing. While the company was in search for a good yeast, someone joked that a beard should be a good place to grow it. That joke turned into a real thing — not only that Maier’s beard could actually grow yeast, but it turned out to be the perfect place to cultivate it! Fortunately, the yeast also turned out to be actually quite good for the beer. Yes, you might say that a part of a human body is in the beer, and surprisingly, those who have dared to taste the Beard Beer swear that it actually tastes great.
This beer brewed by Hello Kitty might be one of the ways to prepare your children for a mid-life crisis. Well, imagine them drinking this beer while discussing about their usual grievances like low grades in school, nasty teachers, or their parents who aren’t generous enough to give them big allowances. According to one reviewer, the beer tastes like a fruit-flavored soda but with a beer aftertaste, which is due to a very small fraction of alcohol content. The beer was introduced in Taiwan, and is now also available in China. Time will tell though, when the Hello Kitty beer will hit the Western shores.
What could be one of the very few “spacey” beers in the world also turns out to be one beer whose prices reach sky-high — the Sapporo Space Barley. This beer was a result of an experiment by the Japanese and Russian scientists who wanted to see if barley could grow in space. The price tag? It is out of this world too, at about US$110 per six pack.
Imagine you’ll be hosting a party of a lifetime and you want to have something to be a conversation starter among your guests, you may consider “The End of History,” a beer from Brewdog. Released in 2010, this beer is quite potent, having a 50% ABV. But it doesn’t end there. The package will also leave you stunned (and later amused) because the bottle is fitted into a taxidermied animal, mostly a squirrel or a weasel. To date, only 12 bottles have been made so this partly explains the ridiculous price (US$765).
If Budweiser now tastes like dishwater to you, you might want to get hold of Brewmeister’s Snake Venom, which is the world’s most potent beer yet! It has 67.5% ABV, making it an intense 135 proof — remarkably much stronger than most hard liquors. Snake Venom has surpassed the 65% ABV of the Armageddon beer, also brewed by Brewmeister. You can’t find this beer at any supermarket, and will also set you back at US $80 a bottle. Each bottle carries a warning which reminds you not to drink too much of it.
Carlsberg is one of the biggest names in the world of beer. But if you think they are settled in producing the bestselling brews, then their Jacobsen Vintage will make you eat your heart out. The beer was stored in French and Swedish oak barrels for six months before being bottled. According to reviewers, the beer has a taste of cocoa and vanilla but also with hints of — get this — tar and rope! The Jacobsen Vintage, with only 600 bottles of it being produced, is mainly geared for the vintage and high-end wine market. You may want to get one of the bottles before it finally expires in 2049.
We’ve featured one “spacey” beer with Sapporo Space Barley. Another literally out-of-this-world beer is the Celeste-Jewel-Ale from brewer Dogfish Head. It contains dust gathered from lunar meteorites. This is not just for the sake of making fancy beers. Since meteorites mostly contain salts and minerals, they greatly help in the beer’s fermentation process.