We’re talking about breweries that have pushed the alcohol content of beer past 20 percent by volume, through the process of fermentation alone.

Just as enriching uranium 235 to build an atom bomb requires a considerable degree of technological prowess, so does coaxing yeast into frenzied acts of metabolism that nature never intended.

Both accomplishments carry a heightened degree of responsibility. Nuclear weapons could cause mayhem if they fell into the hands of terrorists. And super strong beers could also provoke mischief if unsuspecting drinkers downed them at the same rate they would a Bud or Miller. These leviathans of the malt beverage world have to be packaged, priced and marketed differently from normal beers. Drinkers have to be educated to enjoy them a few ounces at a time, the way they would an after-dinner shot of some fine brandy.

But there is one key difference: there are probably more nations with nuclear weapons than there are breweries that have surpassed the 20 percent ABV mark.

Alcohol is a byproduct of yeast’s digestion of sugar, and yeast can no more live in their own waste product than human beings could thrive in a room filled with carbon dioxide. The average brewer’s yeast cannot survive in a concentration of much more than 10 percent alcohol, states Neva Parker, lab manager for White Labs, a leading provider of yeast to craft brewers. At higher levels, reproduction halts, followed by failure of other metabolic functions. In the pre-scientific era, she doubts that even the most potent barley wines and doppelbocks measured more than 10-12 percent alcohol. Modern science, stresses Parker, can isolate and propagate strains that have a high tolerance for alcohol, and establish a brewing regimen to coax these yeasts into giving their all. But it’s a labor-intensive process requiring skill and patience.

Nowhere Beer

Boston Beer Co. has crossed the 20 percent threshold six times, once with Samuel Adams Millennium (a one-shot brand released in 2000) and four additional times with the 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007 vintages of Samuel Adams Utopias. The 2007 release, measuring 25.6 percent ABV, earned a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world’s strongest commercially available beer.

My official role is Boston brewing manager, so I run the brewery here. That includes duties like developing new recipes, like our Beer Lover’s Choice Program, which we do every summer. It’s a promotion to test two new recipes with our consumers. They vote throughout the summer and the winner goes in the line-up the following year.

We just received our samples.

Perfect. Both those recipes were developed here. We also do things like the LongShot [homebrew competition] Judging here. Once those winners are picked, we talk to the brewers of those beers: we get the recipes, figure out what they were trying to do, and we scale that beer up to our 10-barrel system, then up to Cincinnati size.

Then there’s the really fun stuff, the pie-in-the-sky stuff. We’ve heard of a new ingredient and we want to try it out, we’ve got an idea for a new beer and want to see if it works. We make Utopias here―a whole lot of everything, really.

Take me through the creation of a new project.

One new project―not really crazy, but different for us―is one of the beers you just received in the Beer Lover’s choice, the ale. (We don’t have a name for it, yet.) That’s our first foray into using American hops. I can’t tell you how many conversations there have been about how to use them. We’re using hops from three of the world’s major growing regions: German, English and American.

You’ve really never used American hops before?

Not in a production beer. We use Hallertau Mittelfruh, East Kent Golding noble hops and the old world English.

How did you go about balancing hop use?

I’m from the West Coast. I love American hops and I have my favorite varieties. We talked first about what we wanted this beer to be and how we wanted it to taste, then picked hops that would achieve that end. We wanted to get that American hop character, bright but not too dominant, and still in keeping with the Boston Beer brewing style: keep down some of the big piney, catty character that is so definitive of a lot of beers. To each their own―I like it―but it’s not the Sam Adams way. We were looking for varieties that brought more of the tropical, floral character without the resinous character.

Which ones did you end up using?

Ahtanum, a little Simcoe―a little Simcoe goes a long way. We’re still working on the bittering hop.

How big is your team in Boston?

There are four of us in the brewery every day. We have a well-staffed lab with three people. Then we have the traveling brewer team―Grant Wood, David Sypes, David Grinnell―that’s always involved with whatever goes on here in Boston.

They’re the ones who go between the Boston brewery and the production facilities?

Yes. The production breweries are staffed by very competent people who’ve been there a long time and know their breweries, but it’s our job to communicate what we’re trying to do here, especially in introducing new beers. So we send out kegs to the breweries, we visit, we sit around and taste together. We’ll say, here’s what worked in Boston, and here’s what might work best in your brewery. Then it’s brewed a couple of times until we arrive at the best way to brew that beer in that brewery.

What beers to you produce at the Boston site?

The only beer we produce here is Utopias. Between all of our research projects and development of new stuff, there’s not much time we can devote to production. Utopias is so time-demanding and people-demanding, it will always be made in very limited quantities. That fits this site very well.

I assume Triple Bock was made there?

Yes, and Millennium, as well. That program―those beers that will grow and evolve―those are made here.

Face it. The high-end beer segment is where the action is. We’re not only talking about the fact that American craft beers sales were up 7% in 2004 and growing at a similar rate the first half of 2005, but also about imports with similar cachet. The discussion needn’t be limited to beers that cost (yikes!) $1 per ounce or more in restaurants, but may include less expensive 6-packs sold in national park campground stores and even 750ml bottles in neighborhood gas stations.

These beers stayed out of the fray as America’s largest brewers engaged in summer price wars, reminding us they are different and giving us reason to ask a few questions. How much should I pay for a beer? Why do some beers cost more? How could higher prices possibly be good?

Stephen Beaumont — a veteran beer writer and partner in Toronto’s beerbistro, a beer-friendly restaurant — has long advocated higher prices, occasionally ruffling beer consumers’ feathers. He explained why via e-mail:

“To the American consumer in particular, price tends to equal quality. Charging higher prices for beer is a) a means of garnering respect from the average consumer; b) a path out of the cheap six-pack ghetto of mainstream beers and a point of differentiation; and c) a way to reflect the quality of ingredients, rarity and amount of knowledge, effort and risk that goes into the creation of some beers.

“The industry should take its lead from the wine business. All wines are made from crushed grapes, yet there are massive gaps in wine pricing. Ignoring those wines from long-passed vintages, the justifications for the difference in cost are quality of the goods, expense of the vineyards (lower yields, hand-pruning and harvesting, difficulties in irrigation, climatic challenges, etc.) and rarity of the wine on offer. All of those traits are echoed in the production of some high-end beers.”

For generations, smokers have been using those words to downplay the consequences of their nicotine habit.

Soon, drinkers may be using that expression as well.

The latest controversy in the alcoholic beverage biz is being generated by a device called AWOL or Alcohol Without Liquid. An Englishman named Dominic Simler is credited with inventing the machine, which converts alcohol into a vapor that you inhale to get a buzz on. Since last year, a company called Spirit Partners, Inc. has been peddling AWOL machines in the United States.

The contraption is similar to the inhalers used by asthmatics, although Newsweek described it more colorfully as resembling “a crack pipe attached to a hookah.” The AWOL contraption consists of a vaporizer, which you pour booze into, and an oxygen generator, which pumps oxygen into the mix to produce a mist that you can safely take into your lungs. The machine is supposed to be calibrated so that it takes about a quarter-hour to inhale one standard shot of hard liquor. The marketers recommend that customers limit their use to no more than two such sessions per 24-hour period.

When used responsibly, they insist, AWOL will produce a “euphoric high” without the throbbing head and dry heaves of a hangover the next morning, and without those nasty calories in a mug of lager or rum and Coke attaching themselves to your hips.

Taunting the Law

Obviously, the device will have little appeal for craft beer drinkers, since it eliminates any possibility of connoisseurship. Alcohol is alcohol, whether you derive it from a vintage 1980 Thomas Hardy’s or a budget-brand malt liquor. (In fact, an advertisement for AWOL recommends using an 80-proof spirit, which pretty much rules out malt beverages… the world’s strongest beer, Boston Beer Co.’s Utopias, is “only” 50 proof.)

However, the machine has attracted the attention of lawmakers like a matador taunting a bull with a red cape. At least a dozen states are considering legislation to ban the device, fearing it may mislead bar patrons to underestimate their ingestion of alcohol and result in health problems and highway fatalities. New York’s state liquor authority was mulling whether AWOL violated a 1934 law mandating that alcohol must be served from the same container in which it was delivered. When Spirit Partners premiered their machine at The Trust Lounge in New York City last August, the marketers reportedly filled it with Gatorade instead of booze to stay within the law.

There has also been concern about whether inhaled alcohol would register on a Breathalyzer test, since it doesn’t pass through the digestive tract. Kevin Morse, president of Spirit Partners, has denied that his device will create any problem in law enforcement. “One of the ways alcohol leaves the body is through the mouth… Therefore, contrary to reports, the alcohol will definitely register on the Intoxylizer 5000… which is used by law-enforcement officials to apprehend drivers who are under the influence of alcohol.”

Nevertheless, Congressman Bob Beauprez of Colorado has introduced a bill, The Alcohol Without Liquid Machine Safety Act of 2005 (H.R. 613), which would temporarily prohibit AWOL machines until such a time as the Food and Drug Administration deems the device safe for public use. (Because it’s a machine and not a beverage, AWOL falls outside the jurisdiction of the federal Tax and Trade Bureau, which regulates beer, wine and spirits.)

The National Beer Wholesalers Association, the brewing industry’s most influential lobbying organization, is supporting Beauprez’s bill. “Beer is meant to be enjoyed responsibly, not inhaled,” asserted NBWA president David Rehr. “These machines are a misrepresentation of consumer choice and undermine the goal of responsible consumption that beer wholesalers work so hard to promote.”

In the long run, however, the indignation of state and national lawmakers may turn out to be an unnecessary fuss over a short-lived fad. The Newsweek article quoted one New Jersey bar owner as complaining about the machine, “It didn’t do anything except burn our throats. The biggest high you get is from hyperventilation.”

AWOL machines are intended for the over-21 crowd, but underage drinkers in the Washington, DC suburbs are using a low-tech device to pump more alcohol down their throats. According to the Montgomery County Gazette, some Maryland hardware stores are reporting a run on funnels and plastic tubing, which teenagers fashion into “beer bongs.” The idea is to pour the beer into the funnel and suck it up as quickly as it flows through the tube. Police can’t arrest minors for mere possession of a funnel, but they are urging citizens to monitor hardware stores for suspicious purchases.

Whatever happened to sipping and savoring? That’s the question we’d like to ask.