By Ed Westemeier
Enquirer contributor

Ohio's newly revised beer law, which raises the alcohol limit to 12 percent by volume, has given many Tristaters a greater chance to get acquainted with bigger beers they used to have to cross state borders to experience.

Most beers are roughly 5 percent alcohol, and the biggest-selling light beers tend to be about 4 percent. So why are higher alcohol beers such a big deal?

In a nutshell: Flavor.

Chemistry lesson

Beer gets its alcohol mainly from malted barley, which also contributes the lion's share of its flavor. Using more grain, particularly a variety of malts, enhances both flavor and alcohol.

Think of the difference between regular bock beer and a doppelbock. The bock starts out with much more flavor than an ordinary beer, just because of the special Munich malts it contains.

Making a doppelbock involves increasing the amount of malt past a certain level, so the flavor is that much stronger.

But there's also a limit. Most yeast strains used by brewers can't ferment more than about 75 percent of the sugar contained in the malt.

Moreover, as sugar is converted to alcohol, the yeast gets less and less effective, so eventually alcohol builds up to the point where the yeast simply gives up.

This is the main reason most beers fall in roughly the same strength range.

How do brewmasters make stronger beers, then? Generally, they select yeast strains that are more tolerant of higher alcohol levels and give the yeast more time to ferment as much of the malt sugar as possible.

While using these techniques is time-consuming for brewers, the results are very rewarding. The long, slow fermentation process leaves more of the yeast's by-products in the finished beer, providing complexity and greater flavor.

The higher alcohol also gives a much longer shelf life, so you can store these beers in a cool, dark place for years.

Big beers don't come in every style, but there's still plenty of variety for everyone. Among lagers, you have doppelbocks and their stronger cousins, weisbocks.

The ale category includes barleywines, old ales, imperial stouts, strong Scotch ales, and Belgian Trappist or abbey ales.

Vertical tasting

Personally, I like to keep these big beers around for one or more years before tasting them. They're great to sip on a cold winter evening, but the most fun for me is a vertical tasting.

If you've never tried a vertical tasting, here's how: Gather a group of friends and a bottle of the same beer from each of several different years.

I've done this with Sierra Nevada Bigfoot many times, and it's always a hit. For example, you might have a bottle from 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2001. They don't have to be consecutive years - just different.

Make sure the beers are all at about the same temperature (not too cold). Open all the bottles at the same time, and give each person a sample of each. They don't have to be large samples - six people can easily share one bottle.

The fun part is finding out how each person interprets the variety.

Sometimes, everyone will think a different year is the best example. Other times, the whole group will agree on the same year.

It's also interesting to see how most people are able to pick up the differences that naturally occur in the bottle as it ages.

If you don't have any big beers in your cellar, Mariemont's Dilly Deli, Jungle Jim's Market in Fairfield and other stores still have a few of the King & Barnes Christmas ale assortments left.

These are six-packs, each containing a different year's vintage of that special beer. And it's amazing how different they are.

Contact Ed Westemeier by e-mail: hopfen@malz.com.