My friend and colleague, Greg Kitsock, had an article last week in the Washington Post that got me thinking. It was titled Another Layer of Enjoyment and tackled the issue of blending beer, especially with Guinness, as in beer cocktails. It was written to coincide, one presumes, with the then impending St. Patrick’s Day holiday. The two most common of these are a Black & Tan — which Guinness has long promoted as Guinness and Bass Ale (the two shared distribution for many years) — and a Half & Half, which is Guinness and Harp Lager, also a Guinness product. Obviously generic stout and a pale ale or lager may be substituted, but as Guinness has promoted the combinations for such a long time, they are well and truly most closely associated with those brands. I once got into a huge row with the copy editor that Beverages & more used to employ when she changed my text for our March newsletter and switched Black & Tan to Guinness and Harp, and vice versa, without consulting me, so the paper went out to thousands of Club Bev members (the company’s loyalty card) with the wrong information and my name on the item as the author. She was one of those insufferable people who felt they already knew everything and couldn’t conceive of ever being wrong. Surprisingly enough, many continue to spread confusion, with plenty of websites — even bartending websites — with conflicting definitions, including a few that contradict themselves. So perhaps the dilemma is not as well-settled as I believed.
Even Wikipedia, which states that the term Black & Tan, in its meaning as a mixed beer drink, was first recorded in 1899. It’s not listed in my OED, so I can’t confirm that. But after beginning by claiming the two drinks are as I think they should be, they later in the article state that “[t]he two most common types of Black and Tan in the United States use Guinness Draught (not Extra Stout) and either Bass, or Harp Lager,” [my emphasis] which at best is contradictory. When you consider that Harp Lager was first launched in 1960, it’s seems hard to imagine that after 61 years of Black & Tan meaning one thing that it should suddenly make no difference what kind of beer is used, but then I presume the Wikipedia folks who wrote that entry were not on to the finer points of what makes a lager and an ale different. Perhaps they simply assumed a light colored beer is a light colored beer.
I know these drinks are just marketing gimmicks, and possibly not even worthy of discussion, but that ’s the anal-retentive in me. Is there some confusion about what goes in a martini or a gin and tonic? I just think there should be some consensus, that’s all. Am I asking too much? Anyway, there are actually plenty more of these type of mixed beer drinks, many of which are black and something, like black and red or black and orange. Wikipedia has a huge list and a website, No Sheep, has a few more as well. Personally, my favorite thing to add to Guinness is just a few drops Crème de Cassis, which gives it just a touch of berry sweetness. But I’ve never had a name for it — I suppose I could call it a black & currant or a black & black.
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Sippin' on the Dock of the Bay
National Homebrewers Conference
June 18-20, 2009
Oakland, (yes, Oakland), California
March 19th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Tho’ not nearly as common as “half and half”, “black and Tan” labeled beers were marketed (pre-mixed, as it were) in the US stretching back to the 19th century.
In this collection I put together of ads and labels, one sees the most commonly advertised “Black and Tan” (from some outfit out of the mid-West).
http://jesskidden.googlepages.com/halfandhalf-blackandtan
Note that the copy uses the terms “‘alf and ‘alf” “porter” “black and tan” and even “stout” as if they all refer to the same basic beer style. The use of “half and half” being synonymous with “porter” is even repeated 50 years later, by an ad for Ballantine Porter, even tho’ above that is an ad contemporary with the A-B one that shows Ballantine earlier brewed both “porter” and “half and half”.
Notice, too, that post-Repeal, “Half and Half” had no definite “mix”- “beer and ale” “ale and porter” and even an “IPA and Brown Stout” are shown.
March 20th, 2008 at 6:02 am
I could be way off, but weren’t there also political tones to the black and tan…being half irish, half british?
March 20th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Sam, there are historical political overtones to the term Black & Tan, which you’ll find if you look up its other meaning in Wikipedia, which is also why the term half-and-half is used in Ireland instead. Though I’ve never known or seen anyone in Ireland drink it. I think it may have been an old man’s drink at some point, but those old men are presumably gone by now.
Jay, since you were the one who brought up anal retention :) “Guinness” don’t do anything, since there has been no company called “Guinness” for about a decade now. I notice they call themselves “Diageo Guinness USA” in your part of the world, and I think that’s just to try and perpetuate the myth that they’re Uncle Arthur’s Quaint Dublin Brewery, rather than the voracious transnational industrial predator that Diageo really are, and the worst enemy of good beer in my country.
The reverential tones that American beer bloggers in particular — people who should know better — speak of Guinness really riles me. It is to stout what Bud is to lager. Why don’t smart people see this?
Oddly enough, Guinness with a dash of blackcurrant syrup is called a Guinness & Black round here.
March 21st, 2008 at 5:16 am
Jay, perhaps you were too hasty in comparing the beer mixture confusion to the now-bastardized term “martini.” Last time I was out, a martini meant just about anything BUT a glass of gin with a touch of vermouth.