Dergy's Black & Tan
Main Street Beer Company / Williamsville Brewery

Dark brown (mahogany to light) with a full light brown head and very active carbonation. Strong roasty malt aroma and taste overpowers most everything in this one except maybe a dash of bittersweet chocolate. Very light bodied due to overcarbonation.

Label States: Wilmington Brewing Co. - Wilmington, NC ... hmm (contract brewed by Williamsville/Main Street in Farmville, NC I believe) & "Dergy's Amber Ale and Dergy's Porter"

Per Beer Club Notes: The beer is a mix of the best-selling Dergy's Amber Ale (60%) and the dark, roasty, chocolately Dergy's Porter (40%).

Pours with a one-finger tan head that fades quickly to just a thin layer leaving a amooth lace. Deep red/amber color. Light carbonation, full bodied. Nose has a hint of chocolate. Starts with a roasted sweetness and finishes smooth with no bitter aftertaste. More porter than ale. Label has as Wilmington Brewery but that is closed. The Williamsville Brewery brews this beer and Main Street markets it (if the web site is current). $1.69 for a 12oz bottle from Super-7 Raleigh, NC.

OK, so this isn't an authentic Black & Tan, but let's move beyond this issue.

Pours a nice deep brown color, dark enough to barely allow light through, with a big foamy head that settles down after a few minutes but remains quite substantial even after several sips.

It has a good aroma of roasted malt with some coffee notes thrown in. No hop aroma.

Its taste is good. It has a nice flavor of coffee and other roasted flavors that aren't too strong. A bit of bitterness adds a bite to this beer. You can think of this as a lighter porter.

It has a medium body, what I'd expect for this type of beer.

I was impressed overall. I had a different Dergy's several years ago and wasn't impressed. This is a better beer. Of course, like I say, it's hard to mess up a porter. This would be a good beer to have if you are looking for a roasted malt flavor without all the body of a full porter.

not a bad little brew from dergy's though the black and tan aspect of this makes it seem moreso like a watered down porter than anything else. pours a dark brown colour with a tiny head that dissolves quickly. smells malty and of chocolate, with some earth and sweetness throughout. the flavour is of roasted/toasted malt with a touch of smoke present. there is a breadlike finish here is this rather simple tasting brew. again, the porter flavour dominates the ale aspect of the brew and makes it seem like a weak porter. an easy drinking and smooth brew, to say the least. i'd like to sample their porter on it's own, as i bet it's pretty good without their ale messing it up.

A lot of these black and tan beers confuse me -- after all, the point of an actual black and tan is that the beers remain separate through most of the drink. But this oddness doesn't nearly confuse me as much as my notes on this, which were scrawled in something of a drunken haze. Let's see what we've got though:

Reddish brown. Decent enough looking brew for the style -- obviously light due to the ale portion of the beer. Chocolate-ish nose to it supplemented by a bit of a funky yeast aroma. Flavor is similarly dominated by the ale's "other half" (better half?). Chocolate, malty, sweet.

Really, this is a weak chocolate porter. It's not bad by any means. But this is little more than a cool party beer or something.

This beer poured a darn brown color with a reddish hue. Creamy tan head was moderate in size but had good retention. Smell was chocolately and slightly grainy. The main flavor I got was caramel but chocolate and coffee were there in the background. It was nice but there was another element, more of a rough out of place flavor evident. It was almost like tobacco, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The beer was a heavy one too. Defnitely more of a porter but I could see some amber elements to it. Not bad.

Pours blackish with a reddish hints near the bottom when the light hits it. Not much of a head at all, and the thin layer quickly dissipated.

Like others noted a strong presence of the porter, with chocolately, dryish taste. Smell is burnt essence of a porter too.

ABV according to Main Street Beer Company for the Amber Ale and the Porter are both 5.5. Black and Tan not singularly listed.

Appearance – Nice, very dark brown in color with a reddish hue and a pretty tan head that showed some good retention.

Smell – The big porter aroma comes out nicely here. I can’t find the “ale” portion of the black & tan in the nose, but the coffee and chocolate notes are pleasing to the olfactory bulb.

Taste – I can pick up a bit of the grain-based ale, but mostly this is heavy on the porter aspect. This is very nice at the tongue, bringing all of the aromatic notes to the taste. The dark chocolate especially is strong and tasty.

Mouthfeel – There’s a little bit of carbonation to this medium-bodied ale. This one is creamy with a buttery smoothness and very nice in the mouth.

Drinkability – I really enjoyed this ale, although I don’t know how much “tan” was in the black & tan.