Taste the Rare Beer Banned in 15 States, Now in Illinois!

How far would you go for a beer that has been banned by 15 states in America?

I had no idea that was a thing until I stumbled upon this story yesterday on Foodbeast titled Samuel Adams 'Utopias' is One of the World's Strongest Beers and is Banned in 15 States.

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Immediately I wondered if it was actually prohibited to get your hands on a bottle of the stuff in Illinois, to which I found out (phew) that it's totally OK. Wisconsin is cool with it too, in case you're wondering.

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Here are the states where you can't get Sam Adams Utopias:

Alabama
Georgia
Idaho
Missouri
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Oregon
South Carolina
Utah
Vermont
West Virginia

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After I got that out of the way I wondered why it's banned, and here's why according to Foodbeast:

Utopias beer, is making waves for its extraordinary qualities. With an astonishingly high alcohol by volume (ABV) of 28%, this beer blurs the line between brew and spirit.

For comparison's sake, a regular America-style lager is anywhere from 4.1% to 5.1% ABV.

Long story short, Utopias is the strongest beer on the market and it's not even close. Hence that's why it's banned in other states.

Samuel Adams via Facebook

That said, we can actually drink the stuff here in Illinois, so to answer the question I posed at the top "How far would you go for a beer that has been banned in 15 states?"

Apparently, you'd have to fill up the tank and go on a road trip because BeerMenus is listing only three places in the entire state where Utopias is available.

C.D. Discount Liquor at 344 Commons Drive in Bolingbrook
Oswego Food & Liquor at 4574 Illinois 71 in Oswego
Friar Tuck Beverage at 1401 West Glen Avenue in Peoria

Besides being absolutely tough to find, it also comes with a pretty steep price tag, $240 a bottle. It might be a good idea to just not consider this beer and more like a rare cognac at this point.

Either way, happy hunting. Let us know if you get your hands on a bottle.

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

Gallery Credit: Angela Underwood