The cause was a single, solitary and very limited edition beer called, rather remarkably, Tactical Nuclear Penguin.

It’s a Scottish creation, this curious ale, the product of the sometimes inspired, sometimes crazed minds behind BrewDog, but it was neither that fact nor its unconventional name — or even its inflated price of £35 for a 330 ml bottle — that stirred the pot of controversy. Rather, it was the beer’s prodigious strength: 32% alcohol by volume!

If you’re keeping track, that makes it the world’s strongest beer…maybe.

Head Dogs James Watt and Martin Dickie would certainly have you believe that Tactical Nuclear Penguin — let’s just call it “the Penguin,” shall we? — is indeed the most potent beer in the galaxy, but there is a small problem with their claim. Because the Penguin is made so strong not through straight fermentation, as is Boston Beer’s 27% Utopias, but via a process of repeatedly freezing the base Imperial stout and removing the solidified water. If that sounds familiar, it should — it’s the exact process used to craft eisbocks and also something remarkably similar to distillation.

(Traditional distilling involves the removal of alcohol in the form of vapor and its return to liquid via condensation, whereas the Penguin/eisbock process removes the water in the form of ice and leaves the liquid alcohol. Since both methods are ways of separating alcohol from water, it’s hardly surprising that the latter is also known in some quarters as freeze distillation.)

What should have followed the Penguin’s release, then, is a reasoned debate over whether it is a beer, ie: the product of fermented grain, or a spirit, ie: a distillate. But that’s not what ensued. Instead, we had a proverbial Battle Royale in which good names were besmirched, storied reputations called into question and a fair number of insults and expletives thrown hither and thither.

With yours truly standing not quite on the sidelines and wondering what all the fuss was about.

In all honesty, I did proffer a pair of blog posts on the subject, but rather than adding fuel to the conflagration, their intent was to set the debate back on track by posing a number of questions. (For the record, I failed miserably in that regard.) One specific query was intended to cut to what I thought was the heart of the debate: Should we even worry about such distinctions between beer and spirits, or even wine, for that matter?

And truly, as you may have gathered from the headline of this column, I really don’t understand why strength is such a big deal. For the brewer, of course it is, as the headlines BrewDog garnered in the wake of the Penguin’s release will attest. But for we drinkers, not so much, I think.

Taste, on the other hand, well, that’s something I can get behind, as I have with the current release of Boston Beer’s Utopias. In the case of that headline grabber, I can say that while I was not overly impressed with its earliest editions, I am rather enamoured with the 2009 version, finding in it complexities that were lacking in previous releases and a flavour and character that I believe may be enjoyed equally (and differently) now and 10 or 20 years from now.

Dogfish Head’s World Wide Stout, another North American strong beer contender — although now left in the dust at a “mere” 18% — has been similarly through its ups and downs, but appears of late to have settled into a laudable groove that makes it well worth the experience. But again, its appeal is not in its strength, but its flavour.

The Penguin, which I was fortunate enough to get my hands and palate on, is another matter entirely, something my notes describe as being rather cough syrup-like, albeit with the caveat of “but really good cough syrup.” Its aroma is phenolic, smoky and filled with hints of dark chocolate and stewed fruit, while its oily and intense body has notes of more smoke and bitter chocolate, cooked prunes, menthol, charcoal and braised fennel, and concluding in a hotly alcoholic and tongue-tingling finish.

(There’s another strong beer contender out there, the German-brewed and freeze concentrated Schorschbräu Schorschbock, at 31% with a stronger version expected soon, but as I haven’t even seen, much less tasted it, I shall leave it out of this debate. For now.)

In short, if the Penguin were a spirit, as it may well be, I wouldn’t give it the time of day. As a beer, it is but an oddity, something to be tasted once for the experience and filed away in the mental records. In terms of flavour, it’s a complete bust.

And to complete the circle that is this column, flavour is the only thing drinkers should concern themselves with. When you think about it, really, it doesn’t even matter how anyone — brewery, merchant, consumer — chooses to define what is in the glass, be it barleywine or “double” IPA, beer or distilled beer (aka whisky), sake or wine. Lines can be drawn, erased and redrawn time and again; categories can and likely will merge and be redefined, but what matters most will always remain the same.
Does it taste good or not? Full stop.