There is a category of beer that does not get ordered casually. The number on the label — 28, a reference to the original degrees Plato of the wort — tells you before the cap comes off that this is not the second or third round of the evening. It is the bottle that appears once, shared between people who know what they are opening, and it has been making that kind of impression since a brewery in Kulmbach first produced it more than a century ago.
The Kulmbach beer that once held the world record
Eku28 is brewed by Erste Kulmbacher Actienbrauerei, known as EKU, founded in 1872 in Kulmbach, Bavaria — a town in the Franconia region with a long history of producing strong, malt-forward beers suited to the cold winters of that part of Germany. The brewery’s Kulmbach location gave EKU access to the soft water and cold-lagering conditions that the eisbock style requires.
Eku28 is an eisbock and strong lager at 11.0% ABV — a style produced by partially freezing a doppelbock and removing the ice, which concentrates the malt, the flavour, and the alcohol. The result is deep gold in the glass, with intense malt sweetness, a full body, sherry-like depth, and a pronounced alcohol warmth that makes the strength apparent immediately but does not make the beer unpleasant. For decades, Eku28 held the record as the world’s strongest commercially produced beer — a position it has since ceded to higher-ABV experimental releases, but a title that reflects the ambition behind the original recipe.
Erste Kulmbacher Actienbrauerei’s founding in 1872 placed EKU at the heart of a Bavarian brewing tradition that prized intensity over approachability, and Eku28 remains the most direct expression of that tradition available today.
How Eku28 Beer [ 330ml x 24 Bottles ] is drunk at home
Prost! (PROAST) — German for “cheers,” said sharply with direct eye contact through the clink, never with a water glass. With Eku28 at 11.0%, the toast marks a specific kind of decision — this is a beer that gets raised with intention, not habit.
Bratwurst with mustard is the Bavarian pairing benchmark, and the intense malt sweetness of Eku28 stands alongside the savoury, charred sausage more assertively than a standard lager would — the sherry-like depth of the beer picks up the caramelised skin of the bratwurst directly. Pretzels — Brezel — work with Eku28 in the same way salt always works against sweetness: the chewy, salty surface provides contrast that keeps each sip of the beer from becoming overwhelming across a sitting. Schweinshaxe, the roasted pork knuckle that anchors a full Bavarian meal, is where Eku28 earns its keep at the table — the rendered fat and caramelised skin of the pork and the concentrated malt body of the beer are working at exactly the same level of richness and intensity.
Oktoberfest and the biergarten afternoon are the occasions where Germans gather around tables and raise glasses together, and Eku28 occupies a specific place in that culture — not the session lager of a six-hour Oktoberfest tent, but the bottle shared quietly at the end of a biergarten Sunday when the afternoon has reached its natural conclusion.
How to drink it in Japan
At 11.0% ABV, Eku28 is best approached as a single bottle shared between two people, or a solo bottle drunk slowly over thirty to forty minutes alongside substantial food. Serve it slightly above fridge temperature — around 10 to 12 degrees — to allow the sherry-like depth and the malt sweetness to come forward properly. Pair it with a 7-Eleven beef croquette or a rich pork bun: the malt intensity of the beer and the savoury, fatty filling find common ground in the same way Schweinshaxe and Eku28 do at home.
For a sit-down pairing, try it alongside aged cheese at a wine bar in Tokyo that carries European selections — the sherry-like depth of Eku28 and a hard, well-aged Gouda or Comté work on the same principle as strong beer and aged cheese across German and Belgian traditions. The concentrated malt sweetness and the crystalline, nutty texture of the cheese are direct complements. It is the pairing that makes Eku28 feel like something between a beer and a digestif.
Autumn and winter suit this beer most clearly in Japan, when the alcohol warmth becomes an asset, though Tokyo’s Oktoberfest events in September and October provide the most natural context. At a specialist beer bar in Tokyo carrying German strong lagers, a 330ml Eku28 runs ¥1,200 to ¥1,600. By the case from Omori Mart, the per-bottle cost is noticeably lower.
Get Eku28 Beer [ 330ml x 24 Bottles ] delivered in Japan
Eku28 Beer (330ml x 24 bottles) is available now at Omori Mart, with nationwide delivery across Japan.
- Free shipping on orders over ¥15,000
- Konbini payment accepted at FamilyMart, 7-Eleven, and Lawson — plus bank transfer and card
- Nationwide delivery
Rakuten and Amazon Japan do not carry Eku28 or other German home-country strong lagers at this level. Omori Mart does.
[Shop Eku28 Beer →]
https://omorimart.com/product/eku28-beer-330ml-x-24-bottles/
Prost in Kulmbach, deep gold and record-holding since 1872. Kanpai (乾杯) in Tokyo, where the biergarten autumn arrives every year and the bottle that commands attention does not need to be the largest one on the table.
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