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BEND, Ore. — Tucked in a corner at the Deschutes Brewery, barrels that once aged fine wines and whiskeys are nurturing beverages that are challenging drinkers to think of beer more like wine.

High-alcohol brews like Black Butte XX and The Abyss, known in the trade as big or extreme beers, are among many craft beers that are grabbing a growing market share in the United States from their mass-produced and heavily advertised counterparts. Even at prices ranging from $4 to more than $100 for a single bottle.

"We are looking for what we like to term that 'Wow Factor,' " said Deschutes CEO Gary Fish. "We want somebody to take a drink, stop, look at the glass and say, 'What was that?' "

Sales of premium beers, which include the household names of Budweiser, Coors Light and Miller High Life, have been nearly flat — up just 1.9 percent last year according to Information Resources Inc., a retail research firm.

Meanwhile, craft brewers are grabbing more of the market as they reshape the image of beer. They posted 17.1 percent growth last year over 2006 and accounted for 6.5 percent of the $9 billion in supermarket sales of beer in the U.S., up from 4.5 percent in 2003.

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

Their small size gives craft brewers the freedom to explore the outer limits of beer, and they are being rewarded by consumers who value good flavor, said Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Del.

"This hasn't happened because of some half-billion dollar advertising campaign on behalf of the big brewers," he said. "It's truly the consumer becoming self-educated.

Growing out of home-brewers' efforts to emulate British and German beers, craft beers started showing up about 30 years ago, and bigger varieties bubbled up in the mid-1990s on both coasts.

That's when Vinnie Cilurzo, a former winemaker, made his first double India pale ale at the bygone Blind Pig Brewery in California. It's when Rogue Ales in Oregon packed extra hops into its Imperial Stout, Calagione opened Dogfish Head and Boston Beer Co. founder Jim Koch started brewing Samuel Adams Triple Bock, which evolved into Utopias. The market's strongest beer at 27 percent alcohol, Utopias is also its most expensive at $140 for a 24-ounce bottle.

"They are not lawnmower beers," cautioned Don Younger, owner of the Horse Brass Pub in Portland, who has been a close observer of the craft-beer scene from its beginnings. He noted that mass-marketed U.S. lagers have around 3.8 or 4 percent alcohol, while the fortified beers run about 10 or 11 percent.

The wine-level prices may limit their mass appeal, but plenty of people are still interested, brewers say.

"I sell beer for 15 dollars a bottle and I can't make enough of it," said Natalie Cilurzo, co-owner of Russian River Brewing Co. with husband Vinnie.