My latest Beer 101 column, which finishes off a three-part series on big beer, looks that the Andre the Giant of beer – the 20% plus extreme beer. After some quick accounting of how exactly you can make a beer at 30, 40 or 50 percent alcohol, I spend most of the piece discussing whether we should even consider beer this big as still being beer.

There is a solid argument for saying it isn’t. Extreme beer are made through freeze distillation, a process more akin to the production of spirits than beer. Second, they are not really consumable in the same fashion as beer, even barley wines. You can’t quietly sip a Tactical Nuclear Penguin over an hour. It is too hot and too alcoholic for that.

On the flipside, freeze distillation has a long history in the brewing of Eisbock. Plus the product starts life as beer, is sold as beer, and is made by brewers. We don’t see Smirnoff releasing an extreme beer. It is push-the-envelope brewers like Brewdog that do it. Besides, if it isn’t beer, what is it?

I offer up a few other thoughts on the subject and offer my position – that they still rate as beer despite their size and lack of drinkability. However, I realize that is a point open to debate.

So read the Beer 101 piece, give it some thought and weigh in with your two-bits.