Light Body, Dark, Roasty

Irish Stout, International Dark Lager, Schwarzbier

Murphy’s (Irish Stout), Guinness (Irish Stout), Sapporo Black (Intl Dark), Shiner Bock (Intl Dark), Enegren Nighthawk (Schwarzbier)

I was still honing my technique/strategy for these earlier panels (hence the plastic cups and 5 beers instead of 6), but this was still a very helpful one. Here were my big takeaways to help me differentiate the different styles:

• I detect butterscotch/diacetyl in Irish Stout. It’s also very bitter/burnt compared to the others.

• International Dark Lager tasted acidic/fruity/carbonic acidey (like fancy fruity single-origin coffee) and kind of astringent- not full or round on the palate. Also very low bitterness.

• Schwarzbier had chocolatey notes and wasn’t very bitter, especially compared to Irish Stout. Take this with a grain of salt though, this was an American craft version of Schwarzbier.