Would you pay $150 for one bottle of beer?

The craft brew revolution took a strange, pricy twist in Vancouver this week, with the announcement that a $150 beer will soon be available in select B.C. Liquor Stores.  In total, 84 bottles of Utopias, made by American brewer Samuel Adams, will make their way to the province.

But this is no ordinary brew.  It has no carbonation and an incredible 28-percent alcohol content, more than twice the percentage in an average bottle of wine.  In fact, it can be opened and closed like a spirit and doesn’t have to be refrigerated.  The beer comes in special 710-ml bottles, twice the size of a typical longneck beer bottle.

So how does it taste? According to Samuel Adams, Utopias is “reminiscent of a deep, rich vintage port, fine cognac or aged sherry, while surprisingly light on the palate.”  It’s actually a blend of different batches of beer, some of which have been aged for up to 19 years.

The beer was stored in all kinds of different barrels during the aging process, from old bourbon casks to enhance vanilla and maple notes to port casks to bring out fruity aromas and rum barrels from Nicaragua to add flavours of chocolate, raisin and spice.

Two separate versions of Utopias will be available in B.C, a traditional (black) 10th anniversary edition and a special (copper) 2013 edition, which is blended with a Belgian-style beer evocatively named Kosmic Mother Funk, an exotic brew aged for up to 2 years in Hungarian oak tuns.

So how do you get your hands on these exclusive suds? Anticipating huge demand, B.C. Liquor Stores has actually initiated a lottery to determine who gets first dibs on the bottles.  Anyone of legal drinking age can enter, from Jan. 29-Feb. 14.  Winners will be selected on Feb. 21 and will have the chance to purchase and sample one of the world’s priciest beers.