Black and Tan
3.5 4 ratings
Ingredients
How to make
Serve in a pint glass
- 1 POUR pale ale or lager into chilled glass then carefully FLOAT Guinness on top
- 2 Layering can be aided by pouring down the stout/porter down the shaft of a bar spoon so that the flat end dissipates the falling porter/stout
- 3 Or, an upturned tablespoon or a purpose-made black-and-tan may be used
- 4 This is bent in the middle of the handle so that it can be secured on the edge of a pint glass.
Flavour profile
4.3% alc./vol. · 1.5 standard drinks · 1088 calories
History
A layered drink with pale ale (or lager) and stout. Poured correctly, these make a perfect "black and tan".
In England, blending different beer styles for serving, such as light and bitter, is common practice and dates back to at least the 17th century. For the Black and Tan, this traditionally involved porter, or more commonly stout (the "black" top layer), poured over pale ale (the tan base). Some prefer lager instead of pale ale. The porter or stout floats on the pale ale (or lager) due to its lower relative density. The term "black and tan" likely also originated in England, with the earliest written use attributed to an 1881 edition of the American magazine Puck, though this has not been verified. The first definition of Black and Tan as a mix of beers appears in the 1889 publication A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, vol. 1 (A–K) (page 124) by Albert Barrère and Charles Godfrey Leland, published in London by The Ballantyne Press. The dictionary entry reads: "Black-and-tan (street), half-and-half, porter and ale mixed. (American), applied to black and brown terriers. A mulatto, a mixture of mulattoes and blacks. During the Civil War, the South was called the black-and-tan country, from the planters "tanning" or beating their slaves." In Ireland, "Black and Tans" was a nickname for the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, derived from their black and khaki uniforms. The Black and Tans were dispatched to Ireland in the early 1920s to quell the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and rapidly developed a reputation for brutality. They were also linked to reprisal attacks on civilians, including murder, arson, and looting. Consequently, in Ireland, ordering a Black & Tan might cause offense, and the beer mixture is simply referred to as a "half & half."