Black and Tan Recipe: How to Layer Stout on Ale

Ingredients

8 oz pale ale or bitter well chillede.g. Sierra Nevada · BrewDog · Fuller's · Brooklyn
8 oz stout well chillede.g. Guinness · Murphy's · Beamish

Garnish: No garnish · Ice: Served up, no ice

Method

Tilt a clean pint glass and pour the pale ale until the glass is half full, leaving a modest head.
Let the foam settle for a few seconds.
Hold a large spoon upside down just above the ale, touching the inside of the glass.
Pour the stout slowly over the back of the spoon so it spreads across the surface and floats.
Serve at once, before the layers begin to blend.

Watch it made

Black and Tan

Taste

Roasted coffee and chocolate from the stout first, then the malty, gently bitter ale underneath. Light in alcohol, creamy on top.

History and origin

Mixing two beers in one glass is an old pub habit in Britain, where half-and-half mixes of mild, bitter, porter or stout were common long before anyone layered them. The layered, two-tone version became a showpiece in the late twentieth century, helped by nitrogenated draught stout, which is less dense than typical ales and sits neatly on top.

The name needs a word of caution. In Ireland, "Black and Tans" recalls the notorious British auxiliary police force of the Irish War of Independence, so ordering a drink by that name in an Irish pub can cause real offence. There, and in many Irish bars abroad, the same pour is simply called a half and half.

Bartender tips

Canned or draught nitro stout floats best; bottled carbonated stouts are often denser and sink.
A strong, dense ale on the bottom helps the separation: the bigger the density difference, the cleaner the line.
Bartenders use a bent layering spoon, but any tablespoon bent slightly at the neck works at home.

Variations

Half and Half: The same pour with lager instead of ale. In Ireland the name is used for any stout float.
Black and Blue: Stout floated over a blueberry wheat beer, a popular American bar twist.