Brewing beer is very different from making grain alcohol. What you get with a still (pot, reflux, or other) is grain alcohol (ethanol) which is, I think, pretty much vodka.. you can run your car on it. You create an alcohol through fermentation (like beer) but the alcohol contains both methyl as well ethyl alcohol. Because methyl alcohol is toxic (causes blindness as well as death) you use a still to seperate the good alcohol from the bad. Because I prefer flavored alcohols that do not taste like medicine (tequila, rum, and.. yum.. bourbon wiskey - Jim Beam anyone?) I've never bothered with distillation. Of course, distilling alcohol is also ILLEGAL here.. so that factors in aswell.
Beer making is a very simple process... but it can, if you want, become quite complex. If you are doing all grain batches with decoction mashes it can become somewhat complex...
Surprisingly, the clydesdale piss they sell in the supermarkets is a fairly difficult beer to make. For one, such a clean, flavorless beer leaves no room for off flavors to hide. Second, those beers are lagers which require extended storage/fermenting at cold temperatures (lagering) - most of us don't have space or money for a lagerin chest/fridge. Most of us make ales. Ales include everything from pale ales (like sierra nevada pale ale, liberty pale ale, etc) to cream ales (also light in color but not nearly as bitter - bittersweet actually and they contain corn typically) to porters (yuengling porter, black and tan has similar profile) to stouts (sweet stouts like mackeson, dry stouts like guiness, coffee stouts, oatmeal stouts, etc.). Oh, and don't forget wheat beers.. those are very popular as of late - blue moon, tucher, etc. There are smoked beers and fruit beers (I hear apricot is good BTW). A good pumpkin beer with some of those pumpkin pie spices is great also (try shipyard ale's pumpkinhead brew). Especially if you're an all grain brewer then the possibilities are endless.
In terms of abv, english milds are 3% while imperial stouts are 8-10% abv. Barely wines are upwards of 10% as well. As someone else mentioned you can also use your beer equipment to make mead (honey based alcohol - I hear it's absolutely incredible but haven't had any yet as it takes serious aging to develop and I can't wait 2+ years to drink my product!). Braggot is a mixture of mead and beer and I hear it is also quite tasty.
Careful though, this is an addictive hobby.. you may start with extract brews as I did but you'll soon be doing all grain brews and dreaming of kegging equipment as I am now.
For a good, free, info try palmer's "how to brew" It's also available in paper.. but the online version is free.
www.howtobrew.com it's a good read for beginner and expert alike. Also, check out your local homebrew shop for the proper equipment. You can get a very basic brew kit with everything you need to get started for under $80.