A bottle of this beer showed up at the office of All About Beer Magazine in an ubiquitous brown bag with a penguin stamped on it. BrewDog claims this is the strongest beer ever brewed weighing in at 32 percent ABV. Detractors claim that this brew is not beer but rather a spirit that is distilled. We got a single bottle from “Batch 2” which was labeled “Best Before 2020.” The staff all sat around and sampled two ounce pours of this much-talked-about beer. It poured a soupy burgundy and had absolutely no head. It was bitter and biting and had a serious alcohol burn. It tasted like the cough syrup of my youth. I blurted out, “This is the Jägermeister of beer!”
As the resident punk rocker here at the magazine, I think one needs to consider this beer in the context of BrewDog’s portfolio of beers and not as a stand-alone beer much like you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) judge a band on one release. The Penguin is clearly made with contempt for the mainstream brewing industry and the alcohol police. Do not let this scare you away from the stellar beers from BrewDog like their Hardcore IPA, Riptide stout or the aged stout Paradox. Just like a jazz aficionado shouldn’t judge saxophonist John Zorn solely on his group Naked City, one should not judge BrewDog on this beer alone. Naked City is not everyman jazz and Tactical Nuclear Penguin is not everyman beer. It is beer brewed by a company for the simple fact to prove that they can, and that warms my punk heart.