Brewdog Tactical Nuclear Penguin - the world's strongest beer

BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin Tasting at North Bar, Leeds

One of the best things I’ve found about living in Leeds, or a larger city for that matter, is the variety of events that take place that you don’t always find in less adventurous urban areas (maybe I was just brought up in a particularly boring town?!).

Zak with the Penguin

In the three years I’ve made Yorkshire’s modern capital my home, I’ve enjoyed Leeds International Film Festival, the West Indian Carnival, the Christkindelmarkt, a couple of League One Play Off Semi Finals and (less fortunately) a huge Robbie Williams concert at Roundhay Park (don’t ask) and countless other dates in the diary that are a feature of dwelling in a cosmopolitan city.

As well as these large scale events it’s actually the smaller opportunities that appeal to me most: being able to see Almodovar films in the ancent Hyde Park Picture house, attending a Flying Dog beer and food evening and the chance to see actual rock stars whilst playing 5-a-side (if you classify relatively obscure post-rock bands as rock stars!).

So when Zak Avery asked me if I’d like to take part in a live video tasting of the newly released and lavishly expensive Tactical Nuclear Penguin by BrewDog, the strongest beer in the world, not only did I jump at the chance but I carved another notch on my list of reasons to live in Leeds…

Luckily the selected date, Friday just gone, was a quiet day in the office (not entirely down to the fact the night before was our Christmas party) and I managed to grab an afternoon off. I covertly snuck off to North Bar, less than 12 hours after I’d left there and met up with Matt and Rob from Hopzine.

Moments later Zak trooped through the door with a crate of small glasses on his shoulder, a very unimposing dark 330ml bottle peaking over the sparkling glassware. Tactical Nuclear Penguin had arrived in the building.

And so the tasting began…

Cath from North Bar went first, describing Tactical Nuclear Penguin as ‘a peaty, smoky whiskey’ and starting the spirit/beer debate with a nod to the stronger stuff.

Matt tries to conjure the words to describe the complexity of Tactical Nuclear Penguin

I went next and managed to lose most of my vocabulary. I was looking for words like wood, smoke and chocolate but that came out as ‘barbecue’. It was difficult to put into words a beer as complex as Tactical Nuclear Penguin after one sip and even more so as the whole time I was trying to talk it’s burning a fast track path down my oesophagus!

Matt and Rob from Hopzine followed, Matt being more impressed than he expected and Rob picking up on some stewed fruits and similarities with BrewDog’s other aged stouts. Matt, like me, somewhat sat on the fence on the spirit debate, but Rob decidedly swayed towards beer.

Paul Marshall (a singer who holds the special title of being one of only about 3 musicians that both my girlfriend Sarah and I can enjoy together) popped in on his lunch which was naturally mostly liquid, picking up on whiskey and peat also, and was followed by Matt from North Bar and Andreas from Vertical Drinks who both came up with words we’d not been able to find – ‘beer liquor’ and ‘soy sauce’. All agreed it was a beer but had the character of a spirit – a hybrid of the two perhaps.

Paul Marshall aka Lone Wolf takes a good sniff of BrewDog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin

If you read Zak’s notes on his blog you will have already read the best single description of BrewDog’s Tactical Nuclear Penguin though, from one of Zak’s regular customers, Michael C. I wish I’d been there to hear it, but not as much as Zak wishes his video camera was rolling as Michael uttered the worlds best beer-review-tweet that never happened: “It tastes like someone has taken all the liquorice in the world and left it at the bottom of a coal mine for a thousand years“.

The day I write something that good I’ll have nailed this beer blogging malarkey!

Thanks to Zak and North Bar for hosting the tasting session. The tasting continued well into the afternoon with a host of Belgian ales, American IPAs, stouts and cherry lambics arriving at the table (Sarah who joined us later in the day was particularly impressed with the Casteel Rouge, a new favourite perhaps?)

Also check out Zak’s video blog for his words on Tactical Nuclear Penguin but also lots of other cracking beers (the Raging bitch video is a particular favourite).