It is not one of my fav. brews, but I am glad Abita has a chance to get more product out there.

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DAVID GRUNFELD/THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
Abita's Andygator, which until now has been sold only on tap, will go on sale in 22-ounce bottles in January.
When it first began brewing a beer called Andygator in the late 1990s, Abita Brewing Co. considered it an occasional beverage line.
"We just made a brew every once in a while of it," said David Blossman, president of the St. Tammany Parish brewing company. "We didn't make it commercially available for sale until about three years ago."
Since then, sales of the upstart brew, which is 8 percent alcohol and still available only on draft, have taken hold.

"It's done fantastic," said Blossman, who plans to begin selling Andygator in 22-ounce bottles in January.

High-alcohol brews like Andygator, known in the trade as big or extreme beers, are among the many craft beers that are grabbing a growing share of the nation's beer market. Extreme beers are reshaping the beverage's image and helping craft brewers grow at a time when many of the nation's largest beer-makers, including Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Co., are undergoing consolidation.

"Extreme beers is such a vague category, it's something that changes all the time," Blossman said. But generally speaking, extreme beers push the envelop in terms of flavor, alcohol content or both.

"It's anything that's outside the norm," Blossman said. And consumers seem to have an appetite for it.

Last year craft brewers posted 17.1 percent growth over 2006 and accounted for 6.5 percent of the $9 billion in supermarket beer sales in the United States, up from 4.5 percent in 2003. Some expect growth in extreme beers to help craft brewers make further inroads in the overall beer market, which is valued at $95 billion, including sales in bars and restaurants.

"It is not a fad," said Julia Herz, director of craft beer marketing for the Brewers Association, a trade group based in Denver that represents more than 1,000 of the 1,400 craft breweries in the nation. "It's a solid direction the market is going."

It is uncertain how fast craft beers will continue to grow, but Herz said the indicators are good. After a shakeout in the mid-1990s, the nation's remaining 1,400 craft brewers have a stronger hold on shelf space and restaurant menus. Anheuser-Busch and Coors are making their own line of full-flavored beers. And the Brewers Association's book "Start Your Own Brewery" has sold more than 1,000 copies.

"A brewery in every town is not so crazy to think about in the future," Herz said. "It all goes back to the movement of consuming products that are locally produced."

Growing out of home-brewers' efforts to emulate British and German beers, craft beers started showing up in the United States about 30 years ago, and larger varieties bubbled up in the mid-1990s on both coasts as brew masters chased their fantasies to the outer limits.

Abita Brewing got its start in 1986 when it began producing Abita Amber. With an alcohol content of 4.5 percent, Amber remains the company's strongest line.

By today's standards, Amber is not considered extreme, but it was 20 years ago.

"People would say 'Wow, look at that beer. Wow, look at the flavor.' Back then, you'd consider Amber kind of an extreme beer," Blossman said. "Our first beers were all extreme. Twenty-two years later, they're not."

That's because consumers' taste for beer is evolving.

"People are a lot more sophisticated now," Blossman said. "People are just flocking to more flavor, and that's what we pride ourselves on. We try to make full-flavored ales."

Abita Brewing will be coming out with another 8 percent brew in January called Abbey.