Brewdog Tokyo stirs up UK controversy as more beers land in US

(Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland) – Brewdog, the relatively new Scotland brewery revolutionizing craft beer in the UK, is drawing fire from health officials there after the release of a 12% ABV beer, Brewdog Tokyo. While that doesn’t come close to the highest ABVs among US-brewed beers, it is among the strongest beers ever to be released to the UK market.

According to Brewdog’s website, Tokyo sounds like a very interesting beer: “a 12% imperial stout brewed with jasmine and cranberries added in the kettle. After fermentation we dry hop the beer with a combination of North American and New Zealand Hops. Furthermore we then age this beer for 4 weeks on toasted vanilla French oak chips.” Only 2000 bottles of Tokyo were produced in what was an “initial preview batch” and they can only be ordered in a case of three or six beers from the official brewery website.

Despite such a small production run, the brewery is under siege because of the beer’s ABV content. The Brewdog team reported on its blog yesterday that several news sources including The Sun, More 4 News, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Financial Times, Daily Star, Press and Journal have reported on the story so its making waves. While Brewdog apparently wasn’t contacted for most of the stories, it has issued a response in its “In Defense of Tokyo“ post to the Health officials’ claims.

The Financial Times interviewed one of the critics, Jack Law, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, who asked, “What justification can there possibly be to bring an extra strong beer on to the market? Super-strength drinks are often favoured by young people and problem drinkers – is this really who the brewery wants to target?” It is a wild claim considering that conservative ABV beers like Bud Light and Stella Artois are typically the drinks associated with young people and binge-drinking. It also helps serve as a reminder that while international countries generally seem to allow more freedom in their drinking laws (i.e. legal drinking age of 18), international breweries still face the same pressures from politicians and social groups who are clueless as to what is happening in the craft beer industry.

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Meanwhile, more Brewdog beers have recently hit the states. Liquid Solutions is now selling half of the Paradox lineup on its website. The Paradox Series is a group of limited release imperial stouts aged in various casks. Among those for sale is one aged in 1970 Glen Grant casks. Another is aged in 1987 Macallan sherry casks. In addition, you can pick up the Hardcore IPA, the Punk IPA, and the Physics. These beers have hit some other spots in the U.S. as well so you may want to contact Preiss Imports to see if they have sent the beers to your local stores.

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