5% used to be considered high or an ‘export’ lager when I was a lad. We called Stella Artois at a massive 5.2% “wife beater”.

Typical session lagers like Heineken were around 3.5%.

Yeah, I'd call normal anywhere between 3.5 - 5%, with session beers being anything < 3.5%. Anything above 5% is strong and where, 15 years ago, beers used to top out at around 6.5% in your average supermarket (Carlsberg Special Brew aside), nowadays beers at 8 and 9% are commonplace, although perhaps not to the extent they were 5 - 8 years ago.

A lot of these are just too much, and too weird (as I and many others have commented), for day to day drinking. Nowadays I mostly drink session beers because I normally have to worry about driving, getting up early, or functioning in some at least semi-useful way later in the day.

Jesus, that ‘speccy brew’ burning tyre taste. We got a couple cans once when properly skint and choked them down.

Some of these 12% burned hops ipa’s taste like special brew to me.

> Jesus, that ‘speccy brew’ burning tyre taste.

Yeah, it's basically undrinkable. It was a bit of a staple at 6th form parties in the early 90s because it was cheap and strong, although I always struggled to get it down. I did buy a can many years later to try for a laugh as a fully fledged adult (is it really as bad as I remember, etc.?)... and couldn't finish it. Just awful.