Canadian brewery unveils $1,000 bottle of beer

Each bottle of Glacial Mammoth Extinction has a pendant made with prehistoric mammoth tusk and 14K gold. (Storm Brewing)

A Canadian brewery has unveiled a limited edition beer that’s being sold for $1,000 a bottle.

Vancouver’s Storm Brewing unleashed its Glacial Mammoth Extinction brew on Saturday. The brewery says its Canada’s first beer to boast a 25 percent alcohol by volume content.

“I was trying to make the strongest beer in the world … and it turns out that wasn’t the best idea in the world because the ones that are really, really strong don’t taste very good,” Storm Brewing founder James Walton told the Vancouver Sun. “So I went just as far as I dared.”

Walton started out with a batch of his brewery’s Imperial Flanders Sour Ale, then exposed it to temperatures of about minus-30 degrees Celsius over a month. The ice forming in the tank reminded the brewer of glaciers—thus the clever name. The mix was then aged in French oak barrels for two years.

Subjecting beer to subzero temperatures removes the water, so “what is left is sugars, flavors and alcohol,” explained Walton.

The resulting beer is described as a “rich, complex, and viscous 100 percent malt beverage” that bears more resemblance and taste to a port than a beer.

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Special tastings were offered for $5 a piece at the brewery during the beer’s unveiling.

But is the beer itself really worth $1,000 bucks? Not exactly.

To promote Extinction’s release, Storm released just 10 limited edition bottles, hand crafted by Brad Turner, a glass blower from Terminal City Glass Co-op in East Vancouver. In addition to being handmade, each bottle features a one-of-a-kind prehistoric mammoth ivory and 14 karat gold pendant made by local sculptor Richard Marcus. The ivory used for these pendants is from a real mammoth tusk estimated to be 35,000 years old.

The mammoth-tusked bottles are each $1,000. As of Tuesday, the brewery had just five artisan bottles remaining.

But if you don’t have such a hefty chunk of change, the brewery is selling one liter growlers of Mammoth Extinction for $80 until this batch runs out. It might not be cheap but it’s a steal compared to Sam Adams’ $190 Utopia.