Beer Review: Guinness Black Lager

From St. James’s Gate in Dublin, Ireland comes one of the newest additions to the Guinness family: Guinness Black Lager. This Euro dark lager has a 4.5% alcohol by volume and is cold brewed with roasted barley “to deliver the refreshing taste of lager with the unique character of Guinness.”

Guinness Black Lager pours a dark brown, similar to how coffee would look in a pint glass. The head is very arid and is a light tan color, simulator to Guinness Stout. Based on looks alone I might have a hard time guessing if it was Black Lager or Stout on CO2. The smell of Black Lager smells like a Guinness/Budweiser mix. It smells light and watery with a little bit of roastedness, it’s really not exciting or exotic at all. The lager yeast comes through heavily and makes me think I’m drinking a cheap beer.

This beer has a very non-intrusive taste. The malts are very light, the roasted flavors don’t really stand out much, and the bitterness is low and dissipates quickly. As I taste the beer and think hard to try to identify flavors I keep getting a watered down mix of roasted and caramel flavors and the aftertaste is mostly from the roasted malts and doesn’t last long even when I concentrate on it.

My first thought about Guinness Black Lager is that it’s a poor effort and bordering on being a bad beer. However, after I stopped tasting the beer and started drinking this beer I stumbled on what should be the true review of this beer – It’s exactly what it’s suppose to be: Guinness for Budweiser drinkers. Guinness Stout has a very low smell, taste, impression, or linger, but the reason so many people love Guinness (myself included) is because it’s the perfect companion to any drunken social memory. It’s not a beer that gets in the way and makes it self know and its not a beer that ruins the moment. Guinness Black Lager is exactly the same way, just with a slightly different mouthfeel and initial taste. I love Guinness Stout, I like Guinness Black Lager. To be completely honest I would rather drink this than Harp Lager. Now my biggest complainant is that it comes in 11.2 ounce bottles.

Freaks United Beer Rating: 2.8

1: Busch (Anheuser) 2: “I’ll drink it if you buy it for me.” 3: “I’ll buy it.” 4: “I’d recommend this beer if you see it” 5: “I recommend finding, buying, and drinking this beer at all costs necessary, NOW!”