Stite Black & Tan
Cold Spring Brewing Co.

 

Pour: Coca Color very thin head
Nose: Molasses caramel, grassy lemon and corn.
Taste: Thin water hints of molasses caramelized malt and corn.
Finish Slight acidic and very bland and watery.
Overall: Terrible not good. I dumped out the rest of the bottle. And gave the rest of six pack I gave away.

served from a bottle shaped can. poured out as a clear drk amber. reasonable head. certainly not the best black and tan i've had. strongest taste was malt but slightly off. went down easy on a hot day but taste was not outstanding. Acceptable but not remarkable.

Darkest orange with bright orange edges. Even with an increasingly elevated pour, I was only able to generate a meager one finger of beige foam. The head is hanging around for a bit, but it won't win any beauty contests and it isn't interested in leaving any lace.

The nose is weak, weaker, weakest. What I can appreciate smells like the coffee aisle at the grocery store, baking chocolate and stale tobacco. While it's far from offputting, it's equally far from good. Is it possible for Gluek to brew a beer that doesn't make me want to spit it out as soon as it hits my tongue?

This is a pretty sorry excuse for a black & tan. It's so incredibly thin and watery that I have to continue to take small sips in order to figure out what's going on. Then again, it's such simple beer that it doesn't take long. A Euro dark lager cut with distilled water? Cold coffee with a small shot of Hershey's syrup... cut with distilled water? Do these guys taste test their products before shipping them out the door?

Maybe I shouldn't be, but I'm amazed at the brewery's website. They use roughly twice as many words on the aluminum bottle-shaped can and its 'label' as they do on what's inside it. 'Dramatic consumer appeal' refers to the can, not the beer. 'Unique depth and richness', again, refers to the ink on the can, not the beer. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

If blinded and if all flavor was removed (I can dream, can't I?), I doubt that I could distinguish the mouthfeel from water. Only a trace amount of malt sugar stickiness on the finish would give it away. I knew there wouldn't be much carbonation once I saw beer enter glass. What does it matter? Fizzier wouldn't have worked either.

Stite Black & Tan is lousy beer through and through, but it isn't quite as lousy as Stite Golden Pilsner. I can't believe that I actually have another Gluek beer in my cellar and plan to willingly subject myself to it. Well... maybe not willingly. Is this the worst brewery in America?

12 oz aluminum bottle.

On the bottle it says "Porter 50%, Amber Beer 50%"

Clear dark copper. Light tan head recedes to a thinnish film rather quickly.
Sweet, light caramel malt aroma. Nothing great, but not terrible.
The flavor has some light chocolate & nuts..and a residual sweetness, but overall it's pretty bland.
Quite watery for a supposed porter/amber blend.
"Black & tan" is an iffy style to begin with, but even so, this beer is a poor example of it.

Aluminum bottle poured into a tulip it formed a weak tan head. Ruby red body and little lace left behind.

Smell is of caramel and slightly metallic.

I was taken back on my first pull as it tasted rather tart. I wasn't expecting that and it didn't really belong in my opinion. Some toasted and roasted malts make up the bulk of this but that damned "sour" type flash just kills the deal. I get some prunes as it warms up a bit. It says on the can that it used a porter and an amber ale. I cannot pickup any porter qualities and this leans heavily towards the amber side of the equation.

Notes: Not the worst beer I've had lately but it has to rank among the "not worthy" realm.

From an aluminum bottle, which I consider to really, be a can.

This looks OK in the glass a clear brown colored beer with a decent if short-lived tan head.

The smell is sweet with a little bit of raisin bran and soy sauce in the scent.

Taste is sweet with a taste like it smells, raisin bran and soy sauce. Not much more that I can say about it except it is a lot like watered down Pete's Wicked Ale.

Mouthfeel is thin.

Drinkable is a word I really would use for this. It doesn't nauseate me but it is by no means good.

The stite black & tan in an aluminum poured into a glass. The appearance is a dark brown with bearly any head.

There is barely any smell to this beer. When drinking it, it's very watery and taste of roasted malt with a slight bitterness.

This beer is drinkable but not great. I won't be buying this beer again.

I'm on a black & Tan kick right now. They guy at Surdyk's was pushing this this week so I gave it a shot.

Serving Temp: 42F in Pint Glass

A: Slight white head that quickly faded away to nothing leaving no lacing...

S: Almost no aroma to be found. The Golden ale is more noticible though,

T: Caramely with some sweet notes...what i was expecting

M: Not at thick as I would like it to be. Very light on the tongue...

D: Although it's not a great brew..it is very drinkable. Once I'm done with the 6 Pack I purchased...I'll never buy this one again..they're just better choices out there...

A: Aluminum bottle. Sort of odd but thats probably why I bought it. Pours a sort of light mahogoney brown with some red highlites. Not as dark as I thought it would be. Very minimal carbonation....I'm going to get just a tiny ring around the glass...if that. Darn beer is so cold from sitting in that metal bottle, won't be warm enough to drink for quite a while.

S: Candi corn and minor caramel notes. No hops to speak of. Faint and weak

T: Tastes like some one melted candi corn and blended it with water. Not a lot of depth, not a lot of hops. Tastes much more like a weak amber than anything blended with a "dark beer". This is pretty much it.

M: Thin and watery.

D: Not really sure how this beer made it out of MN and into the CA market...but it won't last long.

Saw this sitting lonely on the shelf, first thought was fancy aluminum spun bottle...it's gotta be a macro creation. Pour out the contents of the 12fl.oz aluminum bottle a clear brown, lightly bubbling liquid with a wimpy off-white head. As short lived as the head was, left a decent, delicate lacing behind.

At first sniff, I get a chocolate roasted, tobacco nose smelling much like a porter. Actually smells pretty good. Tasting it reveals a thin roasted malt, with a bitter chalk like finish. Not much going on in the flavor department yet it does taste pretty good. Weak porter perhaps, I prefer a bit more chew in a "Black & Tan".

A bit watery mouthfeel with no esscence of alcohol, kinda weak IMO. It's drinkable but I prefer much more flavor.

Appearance: Poured from an aluminum bottle with a little head that fades faster than I can type this sentance. Dark brown, crystal clear cola color.

Smell: A couple roasted malts are perceptable, a little cocoa, also.

Taste: Watery, but cloyingly sweet. Absolutely nasty, taste like detergent and saccharin, then sour. I don't know what they were getting at with this one.

Mouthfeel: Watery and forgetable.

Drinkability: Another bad beer from gluek. It's like their attempts at good beer are bad, and their attempts at cheap beer are good (relatively speaking).

"Alumina bottle"...

Well, this blend of a Porter and an "Amber Beer" must be heavy on the amber (according to the label 50/50) because its clear and really just an average light brown in color. Head seems ample at first but it disappears pretty fast. Laces are OK, some thick rings, some dots. Aroma is middling, scant malt perception but with little in defining characters. Weak mouthfeel, thin and poorly carbonated at the same time. The flavor is roughly sweet, slightly honeyish, caramel dominates as it warms, maybe some molasses but without darker roasty or chocolatey qualities, again -- too watery to pull off much. The bottle is kind of fun, not much else going on here. It doesn't have enough negative about it to say it doesn't have average drinkability.