In a black mood

A couple of recently-encountered dark beers today, though their colour is pretty much all they have in common.

To begin, a new dunkel lager from White Gypsy called Dark Lady. I think the Irish beer market has been crying out for a decent dark lager. Could this be our saviour? I thought the fill on the bottle was a little shy but there was no shortage of carbonation, a big meringue of foam forming as it poured. It's an attractive, and authentic, chestnut brown colour and smells classically of hazelnuts and roast. That nuttiness is the first thing to hit the palate on tasting, backed by mild chocolate and caramel smoothness, a touch of bitter blackcurrant and then a razor-sharp clean lager finish. This is a beautifully executed example of Munich's sweet dunkel style. It did leave me hankering for something drier, however, but at least I know which brewer to badger for a proper Irish schwarzbier.

Funnily enough, shortly afterwards, I encountered an Irish beer that did have something of the schwarzbier about it. It was the rare appearance of a product from Donegal Brewing Company on tap in Dublin, at 57 the Headline. The beer was Espresso Stout, one which does indeed smell and taste of coffee but not as strongly as others of the genre. I've come to expect (and rather enjoy) big oily creamy tastes and textures in coffee beers, but this is lighter with only a vague roasty smell, a mild coffee flavour and, most surprising of all, quite a thin texture. The carbonation is high too which pummels the palate before it all cleans quickly away. Like I say, there's more than a hint of schwarzbier in the way this stout goes about its business. It's off-kilter for a coffee stout but still makes for enjoyable drinking.

If there's a lesson here it's that trueness to style is no guarantor of anything. Dark Lady hits all the attributes square-on while the Espresso Stout takes a more unorthodox route, but both lead to a decent glass of beer at the end. Make of that what you will.