Brewed By: St. James’s Gate (Diageo) in Dublin, Ireland
Purchased: Single 11.2oz bottle from a 6-pack purchased at Binny's in Illinois; 2011
Style/ABV: Schwarzbier, 4.5%
Guinness needs no introduction. Founded in 1759, Guinness is a beer standard outputting more than 50 million barrels annually. Guinness is most famous for their stout, but recently they have decided to introduce a Black Lager.
As luck would have it, I picked up some Founders Breakfast Stout and was looking for a lighter beer to drink more casually. There was a table set up at the liquor store where you could try a blind taste test. One beer was Guinness Black Lager, the other beer was a mystery beer. I tried the taste test, and ended up concluding that the Guinness Black Lager tasted better than the competition beer. What was the competition beer? Heineken Lager.
Ummm...Heineken is a Pale Lager, Guinness Black Lager is a Schwarzbier. A Schwarzbier has roasted and sweet malt. A Pale Lager is grainy, has adjuncts, and usually only has very light sweet malt notes. It's not really a fair comparison. In fact, after I stated that I preferred the Guinness Black Lager compared to the other beer, the worker at the booth said something like, "You'll notice that the Guinness has rich caramel and toasted notes while the other beer does not." Well no shit.
Shady blind testing aside, the best redemption is a review. And Guinness Black Lager did taste good enough to warrant drinking 6 of them. So let's break it down.
Guinness needs no introduction. Founded in 1759, Guinness is a beer standard outputting more than 50 million barrels annually. Guinness is most famous for their stout, but recently they have decided to introduce a Black Lager.
As luck would have it, I picked up some Founders Breakfast Stout and was looking for a lighter beer to drink more casually. There was a table set up at the liquor store where you could try a blind taste test. One beer was Guinness Black Lager, the other beer was a mystery beer. I tried the taste test, and ended up concluding that the Guinness Black Lager tasted better than the competition beer. What was the competition beer? Heineken Lager.
Ummm...Heineken is a Pale Lager, Guinness Black Lager is a Schwarzbier. A Schwarzbier has roasted and sweet malt. A Pale Lager is grainy, has adjuncts, and usually only has very light sweet malt notes. It's not really a fair comparison. In fact, after I stated that I preferred the Guinness Black Lager compared to the other beer, the worker at the booth said something like, "You'll notice that the Guinness has rich caramel and toasted notes while the other beer does not." Well no shit.
Shady blind testing aside, the best redemption is a review. And Guinness Black Lager did taste good enough to warrant drinking 6 of them. So let's break it down.
 |
| Guinness Black Lager |
The pour reveals a black-ish beer. This beer is super carbonated and produces a nice 2-finger, tan/brown head. The head is pretty thick and creamy for a lager, and is already leaving some lacing on my glass. I would describe the color of this beer as "Coke" or "RC." This beer looks like a dark soda. This beer is a dark dark brown color with definite hints of brown escaping the sides when held up to light. It does take on a black appearance in lower light. I'm really impressed with head retention, there is a nice one-centimeter coating of head that is sticking around.
The aroma on this beer is a lot of sweet malt with some hints of caramel and lager yeast.
The flavor is true to the aroma, with a nice clean lager body. There is some sweet caramel, sweet malt, lager yeast, barley, and some roasted notes on the back. There is a slight pull towards that smokey note you get in Guinness Draught, but nothing definitive.
Light-bodied, carbonated (...burp), and super-drinkable at 4.5% ABV. This is malty, slightly sweet, roasted stuff. This is a lighter lager with an emphasis on lighter malts as opposed to light hops and adjuncts. This has very little complexity but moderate depth on the palate. The front end is carbonated and malty sweet, with sweet malts rolling into the middle, and a back end that highlights the roasty characters and finishes slightly dry but pretty smooth.
Rating: Average
Score: 57%
There are so many variations of dark, malt-forward Lagers they actually cross multiple styles of beer. This is an okay beer. It has malt, it only clocks in at 4.5% ABV making is super drinkable, and one bottle is only 135 calories.
I don't understand why "Cold Brewed" is displayed on the bottle. I mean, I understand why it is cold brewed, but who cares? This beer screams marketing gimmick and is a sad reminder that Guinness spends a lot of time advertising their beer in gimmicky ways.
How is this beer a gimmick? I firmly believe that Guinness is exploiting the market of dumb people who think that Guinness is a "heavy beer" or a "meal in a can." Guinness Draught is actually a LIGHT stout, clocking in around 130 calories per 12 ounces. Many Imperial Stouts push 300+ calories per 12 ounces. Guinness Black Lager is also a light beer; but it is darker in color and has some malt in it. The Heineken killer? Sure. Whatever.
This is a pretty good dark-style Lager with some nice malty overtones. I would recommend this beer if you want something to session. Buy it cheap though, or look around for other dark Lager alternatives.
No comments:
Post a Comment