I’m talking about beers where the alcohol content is in double figures.

There’s two main reasons for that. Firstly, the alcohol in a lot of these beers tends to be really dominant.

Sometimes I feel like I could hold a lit match over the top of my glass and the beer would catch fire because of the alcohol fumes.

The other reason? Well, a 10 per cent plus beer can get you in squiffy territory pretty quickly. Due to the way alcohol content is calculated – it tends to be cumulative – one 10 per cent beer isn’t equivalent to two five per cent beers.

But some big beers do run counter to those two concerns – well, at least the first one. Not too much they can do about the second.

One of these is the Queen of Scots barleywine from Red Hill Brewery in Mornington Peninsula.

It’s a beer that’s part of their Red Project, which featured 10 red beers brewed to celebrate the brewery’s 10^th birthday in 2015.

While this beer weighs in at an even 10 per cent, I have to admit it doesn’t taste like it.

That’s because it’s really well balanced; there is a lot of alcohol here they haven't let it dominate proceedings.

Instead you get hits of toffee sweetness, sultana and liquor flavours and some understated bitterness all co-existing quite happily with no one character keen to stand out.

I’d happily drink this beer again – which is perhaps the best compliment you can pay to any beer.

Glen Humphries is the 2016 AIBA Australian Beer Writer of the Year.