This study was carried to investigate the biodegradability of phenol wastewater in the sluge blanket-packed bed reactor(SBPBR). The reactor consisted of two regions. The lower region was a sludge blanket of 0.5 m height and the upper region was a packed-bed. The phenol and COD concentration of the effluent, the gas production and the composition of gas were measured to determine the performance of the anaerobic wastewater treatment system as the phenol concentration of the influent was increased from 600 to 1800 mg/l. Stable biodegradation of phenol wastewater could be achieved with the anaerobic treatment system from 600 to 1200 mg/l of the influent phenol concentration. But the SBPBR system was getting more serious at 1800 mg/l of influent phenol concentration. At the steady state of the influent phenol concentration of 600-1200 mg/l, the treatment performance showed the phenol removal efficiency of 94.5~96.3%, the COD removal efficiency of 93.3~96% and the gas production of 4.94~9.64 l/day.