Sam Adams brews up rich treat for beer lovers No ordinary lager, it's 24%alcohol and closer to cognac

At $100 a bottle, you won't find this beer next to the 40-ouncersin the refrigerator case of your local liquor store.

In fact, Sam Adams Utopias MMII, the costliest beer ever sold, hasvanished from Chicago liquor stores a week after the limited editionbrew hit the shelves.

More similar to a fine cognac than the sudsy lager most Americansdrink, it has no carbonation and is supposed to be drunk warm. Italso has the highest alcohol content ever for a beer: 24 percent, or48-proof, compared with the normal 5 percent.

But few buyers will ever find out how much of a punch it packs,for most, it seems, bought the brew as an investment.

With only 3,000 of the 24-ounce bottles for sale in liquor storesin 35 states, the brew vanished within a few days of hitting theshelves last week.

Already, bottles have changed hands on Internet auction site eBayfor as much as $330, and a similar limited edition that the Bostonbrewer put out in 1999 has sold for more than $1,000 a bottle.

The latest version was so much in demand that the folks at Sam'sWines and Liquors in Chicago never got to taste it. The store gotonly 18 bottles, and they all were pre-sold long before arrivingearly last week, said Harvey Povitsky, head of the beer department.

When he let his customers know the beer was here, "Everybodyseemed to come for them quite quickly," he said. "But I don't know ofanybody who's tasted it yet."

Sam Adams founder Jim Koch said he wanted to break the record fornot only the most expensive beer, but also for the beer with the mostalcohol content.

"I wanted to see what would happen if I took beer to an alcohollevel it had never been to before," he said in that lilting sing-song voice familiar from his radio commercials.

And despite the high price, "It's not a profit maker for us," Kochsaid. "Some of the beer was aged for seven years and to get the yeastto ferment to this level of alcohol requires a lot of baby-sitting."

But the company he founded has done so well, Koch can afford totinker. "Sam Adams has been way more successful than I'd ever thoughtit would be, and now I get to make whatever I want," he said.

Koch has no plans, however, to make a lot of the stuff. "It'sinherently not a mass-market product. There's not that many peoplewho can appreciate something of this complexity and style."

But he already is preparing next year's special batch in casks."I'm shooting for something that might nudge the alcohol up over 50proof, that's kind of my insane goal."

As for those who've bought on speculation, "To buy something thisgood and not drink it, to me that's alcohol abuse," Koch said. "It'smeant to enjoy. If you want an investment, buy pork bellies."