a month of beer – day two (Baron Black Lager)

Lagers generally taste alike to me, and this one was striking only in its similarity to many other lagers I have known. It was a bit harsh, with that usual bitter aftertaste of many lagers, though it was not as sharp as it could have been. I don’t like such lagers to start with, but they do grow on you around the halfway mark. The bitterness fades near that point as your taste buds acclimate and the beer starts tasting all right, kind of. My companion compared it to Xingo but declared it inferior. After several sips it seemed to me more like a Shiner Bock, but darker. And alas, though I am a recently transplanted Texian, the Shiner Bock is a ‘one and done’ sort of beer for me the last few years.Curiously, the Baron Black is considered exotic in Seattle, which is Ale-ville; but it would be totally par in Texas, which is Lagerland.

I feel I should invoke a rating system, so this one gets six monks out of ten, as it is a tolerable winter lager, but nothing to go to lengths procuring.