Comments on: Black and Everything

By: sam k

sam k — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:16:04 +0000

Jay, perhaps you were too hasty in comparing the beer mixture confusion to the now-bastardized term “martini.” Last time I was out, a martini meant just about anything BUT a glass of gin with a touch of vermouth.

By: The Beer Nut

The Beer Nut — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:29:24 +0000

Sam, there are historical political overtones to the term Black & Tan, which you’ll find if you look up its other meaning in Wikipedia, which is also why the term half-and-half is used in Ireland instead. Though I’ve never known or seen anyone in Ireland drink it. I think it may have been an old man’s drink at some point, but those old men are presumably gone by now.

Jay, since you were the one who brought up anal retention :) “Guinness” don’t do anything, since there has been no company called “Guinness” for about a decade now. I notice they call themselves “Diageo Guinness USA” in your part of the world, and I think that’s just to try and perpetuate the myth that they’re Uncle Arthur’s Quaint Dublin Brewery, rather than the voracious transnational industrial predator that Diageo really are, and the worst enemy of good beer in my country.

The reverential tones that American beer bloggers in particular — people who should know better — speak of Guinness really riles me. It is to stout what Bud is to lager. Why don’t smart people see this?

Oddly enough, Guinness with a dash of blackcurrant syrup is called a Guinness & Black round here.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:02:15 +0000

I could be way off, but weren’t there also political tones to the black and tan…being half irish, half british?

By: jesskidden

jesskidden — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:34:00 +0000

Tho’ not nearly as common as “half and half”, “black and Tan” labeled beers were marketed (pre-mixed, as it were) in the US stretching back to the 19th century.

In this collection I put together of ads and labels, one sees the most commonly advertised “Black and Tan” (from some outfit out of the mid-West).

http://jesskidden.googlepages.com/halfandhalf-blackandtan

Note that the copy uses the terms “‘alf and ‘alf” “porter” “black and tan” and even “stout” as if they all refer to the same basic beer style. The use of “half and half” being synonymous with “porter” is even repeated 50 years later, by an ad for Ballantine Porter, even tho’ above that is an ad contemporary with the A-B one that shows Ballantine earlier brewed both “porter” and “half and half”.

Notice, too, that post-Repeal, “Half and Half” had no definite “mix”- “beer and ale” “ale and porter” and even an “IPA and Brown Stout” are shown.