Saranac Black & Tan

I decided on another Saranac beer tonight, from the variety pack my sister brought to me a few weeks back. This time, it's their Black & Tan, which is billed as a combination of Stout and Lager. I like Black and Tans when they're poured in a pub, but they definitely lose something when they're poured from a bottle. Maybe it's that whole multi-layered thing you get at a bar, or the creamy texture that draft beer has, but I think it's more than that. A Black & Tan just doesn't translate very well into a bottled beer. Saranac's was OK, I could taste the roasted malt flavor from the stout, but it just seemed lackluster. This is not peculiar to Saranac either, because I felt the same way about the Yuengling version I tried a while back. I think I'm going to look for a black & tan spoon so I can make my own, and see if it would be better.

Yuengling Original Black & Tan

From "America's Oldest Brewery" comes the "Original" Black & Tan. A Black & Tan is a combination of a dark beer and a light beer in a single glass. The most traditional one is a Bass Ale and Guinness Stout combination. When ordered in a pub, a good black and tan will show up at the table in two layers - dark on the top and light on the bottom. That's pretty difficult to do in a bottle. Yuengling's black and tan is a combo of their Porter and their traditional lager. It's roasty like a Porter, but has a mellower flavor from the light lager. This went nice with my beef stew, but I prefer a real Porter or stout; or a real Black & Tan for that matter. I really like Yuengling's Porter, but it seems impossible to find here in Florida - which is odd since they have a brewery in Tampa.