VIDEO: Do you have the balls for whale testicle beer?
As the new video on YouTube explains, Hvalur 2 is a 5.1% ABV seasonal brew, which celebrates the pagan festival of Thorrablot, and runs from mid-January to mid-February.
Traditional Icelandic cuisine, including rotten shark and cured sheep's head delicacies, are central to the festivities – something Steji has tried to capture in its beer.
The brew contains water, special berry hops and two types of malt but the crowning glory is a single testicle in each brewing cycle, weighing between seven and eight kilogrammes.
The fin whale testicles are minced into sausages, salted, cured, then smoked in the traditional Icelandic way with sheep's dung before joining the hops in the mash tun. The beer is filtered and pasteurised before bottling.
Stedji brewery created much controversy when it first launched the beer with activists furious about the continued commercial whaling in Iceland.
A spokesman for charity group Whale and Dolphin Conservation said: "This is a calculated move, not only to dishonour a beautiful an endangered creature by using its most intimate of body parts as a marketing tool but also sends a clear 'two fingers' to the conservation community and those who love and respect whales."
