Sure, you could make beer look classy just by pouring it into a champagne flute and pretending, but some occasions call for a little more elegance. Samuel Adams and Weihenstephan breweries solve the beer lover’s age-old problem of how to incorporate beer into a champagne toast, uncorking Infinium, their new collaborative brew, for the start of the holiday season.
The champagne-like Infinium will hit shelves in early December, retailing at $19.99 a bottle. Available only in select locations for a limited time, the beer combines a crisp acidity with a fruity aroma, making it a unique drink for New Year’s Eve toasts or a stand-out stocking stuffer.
“Traditionally, higher alcohol beer that is made without adjuncts or enzymes has been very thick and syrup-like,” said Samuel Adams brewer Jim Koch. “This is the first time you’ve been able to get that crisper, dryer taste.”
Infinium comes in cork-topped 750mL bottles and pours out a deep golden color, punctuated by the sparkle of fine bubbles. But don’t be fooled by the festive appearance and light character—at 10.3 percent alcohol by volume, it has about twice the alcohol content of your average beer.
Like all of Weihenstephan’s beers, Infinium adheres to the strict German purity laws of Reinheitsgebot, ensuring that the only ingredients are malt, hops, water and yeast. It’s the first new beer to be created under these laws in over a hundred years, and the process took more than three years to perfect.
“It was a challenge, and we hit a lot of dead ends,” Koch said. “We had to use both the creativity of Sam Adams and the technical capabilities of Weinhenstephan, and I think the quality fixation of both of us has had an impact on it. We wanted to create something not only different, but wonderful.”
Now that’s worth a toast.
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