American Strong Ale is a catch-all style category for beers from 7.0 percent alcohol by volume (abv) and above.

Some may even be as high as 25% abv, and this includes the famed Sam Adams Utopias, along with a lot of other beers that fall into the "unclassifiable" category – they much of the time end up here.

Characteristics will greatly vary; some have similarities to Barley-Wines and Old Ales, to Double IPAs to Imperial Stouts. Barrel aging is certainly not out of the question, and depending on the brewery, everything but the kitchen sink can get thrown in.

Be careful with these – numerous times I’ve attempted to make one of these a session beer, with less than pretty results!

Here are my Top 5:

Port Brewing Old Viscosity

Mendocino Eye Of The Hawk

Stone Double Bastard

Dogfish Head Immort Ale

Great Lakes Nosferatu

TAGS [ AMERICAN STRONG ALE | BEER REVIEWS | STONE DOUBLE BASTARD | DOGFISH HEAD IMMORT ALE | GREAT LAKES NOSFERATU | MENDOCINO EYE OF THE HAWK | PORT BREWING OLD VISCOSITY ]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am by Deron and is filed under Beer Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.