Over the past few years, brewers have been coming up with stranger and stranger ingredients to put in their beer. While many may have heard of the Caribbean chocolate beer or the Swedish sewage beer, these weird beers are made with some truly bizarre ingredients.
In Germany, there may be a purity law stating that beer must only contain water, malt, yeast and hops, but for some, no ingredient is to be spared while making beer. From whale testicles to oyster stouts, experimental and weird beers are having a moment in the spotlight. So, here is our list of 11 weird beers from around the world:
1. Saliva Beer, Peru
Known as chicha (or chicha de jora), this Peruvian beer is made from corn. While that may not seem too weird, the corn is fermented by being chewed up and spat out in a sort of fermentable mash. These days, it can also be made with malted barley.
2. Civet Beer, Denmark
Many people have probably heard of luwak coffee. It is made from coffee beans that have been eaten, digested and pooed out by Indonesian civet cats. Some breweries have been inspired by this idea, such as the Copenhagen based Mikkeller Brewery’s Beer Geek Brunch Weasel. They add ca phe chon (a Vietnamese equivalent of luwak coffee that is responsibly sourced).
3. Elephant Beer, Japan
This beer takes the coffee-beans-pooped-by-animals trend to the next level. Un, Kono Kuro by Sankt Gallen Brewery is made with coffee beans that have been fermented by passing through the digestive system of Thai elephants.
4. Sriracha Beer, USA
This dark, rich, and spicy beer from the Rogue Brewery in the US is made using sriracha sauce. This hot chilli sauce is made with a paste of chilli peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt.
5. Oyster Beer, USA
Sriracha is often eaten with seafood, but the Porterhouse Brewing Co. makes popular Irish stout with oysters. Raw oysters are shucked directly into the conditioning tank creating a subtle salty-sweet beer.
6. Bull Testicle Beer, USA
On the other hand, “Rocky Mountain oysters” aren’t oysters at all. They’re actually bull testicles! Made by the Wynkoop Brewing Co., the artisan-brewed Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout has sliced and roasted bull testicles.
7. Snake Venom Beer, Scotland
Thankfully, the Snake Venom beer by Brewmeister in Scotland isn’t literally named. It gets its name from the unusually high alcohol content that gives it its “bite”. While most beers have around 5% alcohol, Snake Venom has 67.5% alcohol!
8. Meteorite Beer, USA
The Celeste Jewel Beer by Dogfish Head rings the furthest reaches of the galaxy to your table. Crushed lunar meteorites are steeped in the ale like tea. Even more surprisingly, this meteorite beer is served in little bags made with the fabric of astronaut suits.
9. Dinosaur Beer
While this brewery didn’t use fossilized amber to create a dino-park, the yeast DNA in this 45-million-year-old prehistoric piece was instead (surprisingly) used to make beer. Made by the aptly named Fossil Fuels, this beer is also called “Jurassic beer.”
10. Dung-Smoked Whale Testicle Beer, Iceland
This Icelandic beer combines two of the weirdest ingredients on our list, testicles and poo. The seasonal Hvalur 2 brew from the Stedji microbrewery is made with whale testicles smoked with sheep dung. Unfortunately, it uses testicles from fin whales, which are on the IUCN Red List as endangered. So maybe you should give this one a pass.
11. “Odius Ale”
Brewed by 40FT Brewery, this “Odius Ale” is perhaps the weirdest of the lot. Mr Twit’s Odious Ale uses yeast taken from Roald Dahl’s writing chair. The chair itself was made to help Dahl’s writing after a back injury that occurred during WWII.
These are just some of the weird beers that are brewed around the world. Chocolate beer doesn’t seem so weird after all, does it? You can also read about where to sample the best alcohol around the world.
