Thoughts on strong beer

Beer of greater than 9 or 10% seems to lose some of its essential beeriness. What it gains isn't a bad thing, and often is quite delicious.

But these strong beers should serve as accents and exclamation points to our standard beer menus, not as replacements.

Some beer-drinking sessions begin with a strong beer and then return to more alcoholicly pedestrian if not flavor-deprived fare for the remainder. The reverse is also practised, that is, sipping a strong beer afterwards, as a postprandial.

I would rather, as an example, finish the evening with ONE Aventinus Eisbock and wake the next day happy and clear-headed, than fill the evening with several Aventin(ae) and wake with a fuzzy head.