Black Lager - Seriously?

 On our return from my western homeland we did the thing that we always do - set about making sure there's a good range of fridge beer.

Our fridge beer is usually from Bristol breweries although sometimes I add others if we feel like a change.

This time, I was reminded that it was "Dancing With Spectres" season so I naturally went to Lost and Grounded's website to order some.

If you buy 2 cases (2 x 12 cans) direct from our lovely breweries you always get delivery by courier added free...so it seems rude not to.

12 cans of Spectres...but, what to choose next?

L&G are really specialist lager-and-related-styles kinda guys (and girls) and so often we don't want to drink loads of their beers (but our visit to their taproom a couple of years ago was wonderful) but it's daft not to give a few things a try.

So this time I added a black lager thinking that if I didn't like it - the boy probably would.  I added other things too but the black lager was very much the unknown quantity.

So we tried it last night.

Blimey!  It was lovely.  Like a tamer version of "Spectres" (officially a Baltic Porter).  

It reminds me of the first time I was offered a Black IPA (Arbor's sadly missed Black-Eyed PA).  It seems contradictory - lagers and pale ales are...well pale. (I know that lagering is a process not a colour description but we all know it's pale, right?).

You look at it.  You take a sip and if you close your eyes you could think it was just the same as its pale cousin.  But wait! The chocolate malt starts to assert itself and you get a much deeper flavour.

With an ABV around 5% it's not a starting beer for us - so it's not the first thing we'd pick up, say, after a walk on a warm day but it was glorious.