Guinness Black Lager

Gilgamesh Tablet

For Two Guys' 5^th sampling, we thought we might give a quick history of the sublime beverage. Approximately 6000 years ago some dude in Sumeria accidentally got some bread or grain wet and let it sit for a while which caused it to ferment. For some reason, this insane guy drank the result. (Why would a normal person actually drink fermented bread? Ick!) The guy thought “duuude, this is awesome” or however that translates to Sanskrit. He repeated this process until it was perfected—perhaps perfected is not the right word since the beer had to be drank with straws to avoid the fermentation by-product debris. (Again, ick!, but such is the greatness of beer) It became so important to Sumerian culture that it is mentioned in Gilgamesh—the first great work of literature. In it, beer is responsible for making a primitive man into an advanced human being thus showing the true power of beer. Then over the next 6000 years a lot of blah blah blah stuff happened to get the beverage we so enjoy today. We did mention that we would make this quick. We just really wanted to mention Gilgamesh. Two Guys are highly cultured. Now onto the beer!

Joe: For our 5^th sampling we decided to go Irish and try Black Lager from the Guinness brewery located in Dublin, Ireland.  It is, by the nature of its name, a very dark beer with medium carbonation and 4.5% ABV.  It has a malty caramel taste with slight hops bitterness at the back end.  Unlike other Guinness beer, it is meant to be drank cold—it will lose some of its flavor if you let it warm-up.  Truth to be told, Two Guys actually first drank this beer on St. Patrick’s Day.  The search for an Irish beer led us to realize that there is a whole world of beer that we would like to try.  This search is what led to the idea of the blog.  So for that and it's very good flavor, I give this beer 4 stars.

Justin: Guinness’ foray into the world of lagers is none other than a black lager. This is a smart move as I just can’t see a light colored lager with the Guinness label taking off. As Joe mentioned, we had previously tried Black Lager on St. Patrick’s Day. At that time I wasn’t concerned with remembering what I liked about the beer, I just knew that I really liked it. We knew that we wanted to give this beer a review so it was the perfect excuse to buy it again. The ‘black’ in the name refers to the color of the beer however it is still very smooth and refreshing much like a lager. I really enjoyed the flavor undertones of roasted caramel malts with a faint hops bitterness, though they are a little subdued, most likely so that it is able to appeal to more of a mass market. Four stars!