I suppose it is only human nature to want to outdo your neighbor, at least in a survival of the fittest mentality.  However, in this world capitalist economy we lose our way.  Case in point, within seconds of my father putting his mower away his next door neighbor hastily makes sure to remove his retired self from the lazy boy and mow his pristine yard.  Heaven forbid his yard not be the best trimmed in the neighborhood, if even for a moment.  I love visiting every summer just to observe this asinine behavior.

Of course, a beer analogy ensues.

In 2002 Samuel Adams wowed the world with it’s release of a monster of a beer, Utopias, which boasted an ABV of 27%.  Go ahead and search around online for it.  A quick google search revealed a several year old bottle for $599.99.  Sam Adam’s spends years making this beverage, aging it in used liquor barrels.

Sam Adam’s inadvertently started the big beer race, and it seems to have picked up speed in recent months.  First off, let me state that there is an overwhelming trend of bigger beers.  It seems the higher the ABV, the more interest a beer generates.  Remember The Bruery?  Of course you do.  They brewed that big old imperial stout, Black Tuesday.  Prior to the Black Tuesday hype were they even a blip on your radar?  Interesting to the theme of this article is a comment made to Mike when he was touring Bruery.  I recall him telling me that a brewer said, in reference to Black Tuesday, that they wanted to eventually push the ABV beyond that of Utopias and that they didn’t even care what it tastes like.

This was before the release of Tactical Nuclear Penguin, by Scottish bad boys, Brewdog.  Tactical Nuclear Penguin was marketed as  The Strongest Beer in the World.  This experiment in ridiculously high ABV weighed in at 32%.  I still have not tried it, so I cannot vouch for it’s magnificence, and I am not going to spend my kids’ college fund on it, so go here to read some reviews.

It seems a German brewery–Schorschbräu–just couldn’t stand the fact that Brew Dog’s proverbial lawn was greener than their own, so they brewed up a better tasting higher ABV brew that boasted and alcohol content of 40%.

Weeks later, Brew Dog is now announcing the creation of their latest brew, Sink the Bismark, that one-up’s the Bavarian Beast by 1% with an ABV of 41%.  And I am getting tired.

Now, I am not opposed to avantgarde brewing and feel that for my purposes Reinheitsgebot is a tad silly.  I am not opposed to big ABV beers.  In fact, I brewed up a 17.4% Belgian Stout; however, in mind was not highly elevated alcohol, but rather a unique flavor.  In fact, Mike defended Tactical Nuclear Penguin, and I agreed with every word he said.  I uphold Brew Dog as brewery that makes fantastic beer, and champion their right to brew up a beast of a beer and still call it beer.

I suppose I’d offer up a cautionary tidbit of advice to brewers, including myself as a homebrewer:  Let’s keep exceptional flavor in focus as the desired end result rather than peripherals such as enormous ABV’s.

For the record, I still want to try all of aforementioned beers in this article, and please do not misconstrue my words as passing judgment upon Brew Dog or Schorschbräu as having forgotten their first love of better beer, because I do not believe they have.  Unlike certain critics, I’ll concede that Brew Dog’s latest creation is still “beer.”  I  just hope that in the next few months I hear less of the world’s strongest beer, and more of the world’s tastiest beer.