Blending beer, a fad, an awesome way to get creative, or a slap in the face to craft beer?

A Freshly poured Black and Brett

An overhead view of the lagerhead turtle

As I was making a black and brett the other day with my awesome lagerhead black and tan turtle, I started to wonder where did this whole idea originate. A quick Wikipedia search later and the term “black and tan,” was first used in England to describe the color of the dogs, and the first documented usage as a beer term was in 1881. In Ireland they use the term half and half, because the term “Black and tan” was the nickname of the British soldiers that were used to squelch the Irish independence movement in the early 20th century.

As most of my fellow beer connoisseurs know there are several other well known blends of beer, most of them involving Guiness due to its nitrogenation. But there are also some amazing local blends of craft beer as well. NKC’s Big Rip has Velvet Elvis, Granite City has Two Pull, and at Topeka’s Blind Tiger you can mix their maibock with their basil beer to get Basilbock (if you want just a touch of basil). Granite City even has an entire list of different beer blends.


Velvet Elvis picture at Big Rip

In my opinion the best black and tan in history, while also being more elusive than a Sasquatch in the Show Me State, is Yuengling’s black and tan, consisting of 60% porter and 40% premium beer. If any of the Southern Missouri readers want to hop into Arkansas, please bring my back some!

What other beer blends are out there?

Black and Tan (Guinness and Bass or any other pale ale)
Black and Blue (Guinness and Blue Moon)
Black and Brett (Guinness and Saison-Brett)
Snakebite (Guinness and Cider)
Black Velvet (Guinness and Champagne)
Black and Brown (Guinness and Newcastle)
Velvet Elvis (Hathor’s Sweet Brown and Vanilla Cream Ale)
Two Pull (Bennie Maibock and Northern lights lager)
Blind Tiger’s Basilbock (Maibock and Basil beer)

Article about other Guinness Blends

For further beer blending inspiration, check out this article from Serious Eats.

Cheers,
Brett A. Myces