How Do You Make a Black and Tan From Any Pair

To make a Black and Tan at home, pour about 8 fluid ounces of a well-chilled pale ale or pale lager into a clean 16-fluid-ounce U.S. pint glass, let that base go still, then float about 8 fluid ounces of a cold nitrogenated stout, usually Guinness Draught, over the back of an inverted spoon so the dark beer spreads as a film instead of punching through. NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C, lists a U.S. liquid pint at 28.875 cubic inches, which is 16 U.S. fluid ounces; the 8-and-8 split is a home-bar visual starting ratio. The spoon only cuts turbulence. A visible line holds when the stout’s dissolved gas, residual extract, and temperature sit below the pale beer’s, and the stream is slow. In Ireland the same layered stout-and-ale pour is more often ordered as a half and half, because Black and Tan names a British recruitment into the Royal Irish Constabulary during the Irish War of Independence.

A cook-chill line logs a sauce that splits on reheat as a hold failure. A muddy pint is the same log.

Why does the drink’s name change before anyone pours?

A Black and Tan, in American bar English, is pale beer in the bottom of the glass and dark beer floated on top. VinePair’s drinks desk and Wine Enthusiast’s recipe page both tell travelers that the same glass in Ireland is more safely asked for as a half and half.

On 25 October 1920, Sir Hamar Greenwood, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, told the House of Commons: “The men described as Black and Tans are not a separate force, but are recruits to the permanent establishment of the Royal Irish Constabulary.” RTÉ’s Century Ireland explainer, written by Alyson Gray, dates recruitment to January 1920 and puts the intake at approximately 10,000 men, mostly unemployed British ex-servicemen. Jim Herlihy, working from the RIC registers in the UK National Archives’ HO 184 series, counted 7,684 Special Reserve recruits plus other temporary categories. Those two tallies do not match.

The nickname came from the clothes. Gray records that early recruits wore a mix of dark-green RIC kit, which read as black at a distance, and khaki army trousers. Peter Hession, Ph.D., assistant professor of Irish history at New York University, told Wine Enthusiast why that hybrid uniform existed. “The British didn’t want to declare an outright war in Ireland, so, instead of sending in the military as such, they boosted up the existing police force,” Hession said. “These were former military people, many had fought in the first World War. They were recruited as members of the police force, but what they’re actually doing is fighting the guerilla independent fighters. They have a reputation for being very vicious, very brutal.”

Gray’s explainer names the Sack of Balbriggan on 20 September 1920 as one documented reprisal. VinePair notes that Ben & Jerry’s withdrew a 2006 ice cream flavor after Irish protest over the same name. At an Irish bar, “half and half, Guinness and Harp” names the beers without naming the force.

Which beers will actually hold a line?

The classic American pairing is Guinness Draught over Bass Pale Ale. The searcher who types “black and tan Yuengling” or “black and blue beer” is already choosing a dark-beer float, not a locked Guinness-and-Bass formula.

Guinness’s U.S. Draught product page lists the stout at 4.2 percent alcohol by volume, 125 calories per 12-fluid-ounce serving, 9.4 grams of carbohydrate, and nitrogen among the ingredients. The same page dates the first brewing of Guinness Draught to 1959, for the 200-year mark of Arthur Guinness’s lease at St. James’s Gate. That year is brand history. Guinness Extra Stout is a different SKU, with more carbon dioxide. Poured over pale ale, it often punches through the pale layer.

Bass is the pale ale on older U.S. bar cards. An Anheuser-Busch Bass Pale Ale fact sheet, preserved by the Internet Archive, listed the U.S. product at 5.1 percent ABV and named an “authentic Black & Tan” serve. Current North American listings often print 5.0 percent instead.

Harp Lager is the Irish-lager starting point. Bill’s Distributing’s Harp listing prints 5.0 percent ABV; other regional sheets print 4.3 percent. The labeled strength is market-specific. Harp is a pale lager with ordinary CO2 carbonation, which is what the stout needs underneath it.

Yuengling Traditional Lager, on D.G. Yuengling & Son’s own beer page, is 4.5 percent ABV and 141 calories with 12 grams of carbohydrate. That lager can sit as the pale base under a nitro stout. Yuengling Black & Tan is a different product. The brewery’s page says the beer “combines 60% Yuengling Porter, which is lager-brewed like a Baltic Porter, with 40% of our pale Premium Lager,” at 4.6 percent ABV, 153 calories, and 15 grams of carbohydrate. That can is already mixed. It will not show two bands.

Blue Moon Belgian White, on Blue Moon Brewing Co.’s U.S. beer page, is a 5.4 percent ABV wheat ale. Retail nutrition panels for the 12-fluid-ounce bottle list 168 calories; VinePair’s 2025 company-data table matches 168. That wheat ale is the pale half of a Black and Blue.

Alcohol by volume will not predict the stack. Ethanol is lighter than water; leftover malt extract is heavier. A 7 percent IPA with a high finishing gravity can sit under a 4.2 percent dry stout, or punch up through it, depending on sugar, protein, and gas. The Brewers Association’s nitro-dispense one-pager states that nitrogenated beer holds 1.1 to 1.7 volumes of CO2 “as well as a small amount of nitrogen,” and adds that the nitrogen “isn’t usually quantified.” Ashton Lewis, technical editor of Brew Your Own magazine, reports a tighter pair: “Guinness contains a paltry 1.2 volumes or 2.4 g/L of carbon dioxide and about 55 ppm of nitrogen (level reported from a brewing scientist in England with knowledge about this specification).” Those two sources disagree on how precisely the nitrogen is known. Lewis also notes that Guinness’s Draught Quality Standards publication specifies a 70/30 nitrogen-to-CO2 blend at 32–40 psi, kegs stored at 46–50°F and chilled in-line to 39–43°F, while U.S. nitro brewers commonly use 75/25 at about 33 psi.

How cold and how still do both beers need to be?

A warm, shaken can of Guinness Draught is the fastest way to erase the picture. The U.S. Draught page tells home pourers to use a clean pint glass, pour at 45 degrees, then “Let it settle.” It does not print a second count. Beer-service guidance for a home float commonly allows 2 to 3 minutes of settling after the widget fires. Actual time moves with agitation, temperature, and whether the glass is nucleating foam from residue.

Serving temperature is one of the places the manuals do not agree. The American Homebrewers Association’s table, drawn from Randy Mosher’s Tasting Beer, puts nitro stouts at 40–45°F and ordinary stouts and porters at 45–55°F. Geoff Bragg, a BJCP Master Beer Judge, told Tasting Table that “Stouts and porters are typically served in the 45-55 degrees Fahrenheit range,” and that nitro versions perform best near 45°F. Lewis’s reading of Guinness’s Draught Quality Standards puts beer at the faucet at 39–43°F (4–6°C). A refrigerator at 38°F is in the nitro window Mosher and Guinness both accept. A can on a counter at 70°F is in none of them.

Guinness’s Canadian FAQ describes the widget as a plastic moulded device that traps beer and nitrogen; when the can is opened, that charge is forced through the beer and builds the surge. Open a warm can and that charge is a jet. Open a cold, unshaken can, pour the stout into a second glass at 45 degrees, and wait until the cascade has gone still.

The pale beer needs the same fridge. Pale lagers, on Mosher’s AHA table, sit at 38–45°F; American pale ales at 45–50°F. A room-temperature lager throws a bigger head and a less stable surface. One cold hold, two packages.

How do you pour the pale beer first?

The pale beer goes in first. It has to be the floor the stout walks on.

Use a 16-fluid-ounce U.S. pint glass, clean and dry. Lipstick, dishwasher film, and etched logos are nucleation sites: they strip gas out of solution and turn a quiet base into a foam collar. A UK imperial pint is a different vessel. NIST Handbook 44’s Appendix C lists the British gallon at 160 British fluid ounces; an imperial pint is 20 imperial fluid ounces, about 568 milliliters, against the U.S. liquid pint’s 16 U.S. fluid ounces, about 473 milliliters. An 8-and-8 split in an imperial pint leaves a larger glass half empty.

Pour the pale ale or lager down the side until the liquid sits near 8 fluid ounces. A modest head is useful. If the pale beer is Bass, Harp, Yuengling Traditional Lager, or Blue Moon, the job is identical: fill, stop, wait until the surface bubbles have mostly gone. That wait is usually under a minute for a cold, unshaken pale beer.

How do you float the stout without mixing the glass?

The spoon is a flow restrictor. It does not create density.

Hold a soup spoon or a bar spoon bowl-up, just above the pale beer. Pour the settled nitrogenated stout onto the back of the spoon in a thin stream. The beer should sheet off the metal and spread sideways. If the stream is a rope, slow down so the beer hits metal, not liquid.

A second glass makes this more repeatable than pouring from the can over the spoon in one motion. Pour the stout at 45 degrees into a spare glass, as Guinness’s U.S. Draught page describes for a solo pint. When the surge has gone from cloudy to black with a cream cap—beer-service guidance is 2 to 3 minutes—spoon that settled stout onto the pale base.

Stop when the stout layer is about 8 fluid ounces, or when the cream head sits just above the rim. Guinness Draught’s 125 calories are for 12 fluid ounces; an 8-fluid-ounce stout half is two-thirds of that serving, about 83 calories from the stout alone. The pale half adds its own share of a 12-ounce label: 94 calories from 8 ounces of Yuengling Traditional Lager at 141 per 12 ounces, or 112 calories from 8 ounces of Blue Moon Belgian White at 168 per 12 ounces. Bass and Harp do not publish a matching U.S. calorie line on the pages consulted here.

What went wrong if the glass looks muddy?

A muddy Black and Tan is almost never a missing spoon. Diagnose the product and the hold first.

The stout was Extra Stout, a craft CO2 stout, or a warm Draught can. Nitrogenated Draught, after the widget has worked and the beer has settled, is the dark beer this recipe is built on. The pale beer was too gassy or too warm, so the surface was a foam mattress. The glass was dirty or heavily etched, and nucleation stripped gas at the wall. The pour was a jet: the stream missed the bowl, or the can was upended the way Guinness’s “hard pour” video does for a solo pint.

The two beers were a premix. Yuengling Black & Tan, at 60 percent porter and 40 percent Premium Lager, is already one liquid.

ABV was used as a proxy for density. A dry 4.2 percent stout can float on a sweeter 5 percent ale. A pastry stout at 8 percent, heavy with lactose, can sink through a light lager. Change the beers before changing the cutlery. If there was never a line, the starting beers were wrong for this job.

How does a Black and Blue differ from a Black and Tan?

A Black and Blue is the same float with a different pale beer: nitrogenated stout over Blue Moon Belgian White, or another wheat ale, instead of pale ale or pale lager. The related search is the tell.

| | Layered Black and Tan | Black and Blue | Yuengling Black & Tan | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Pale beer | Bass Pale Ale, Harp Lager, or a similar pale ale or lager | Blue Moon Belgian White (5.4% ABV) | Already blended: 40% Premium Lager | | Dark beer | Nitrogenated stout, usually Guinness Draught at 4.2% ABV | The same nitrogenated stout | Already blended: 60% Dark Brewed Porter | | What the glass shows | Two bands if gas, extract, and temperature cooperate | Two bands; wheat haze in the pale half | One color; no float | | Calories on the labeled 12 oz | Guinness Draught: 125. Pale half depends on the second beer | Stout 125; Blue Moon 168 per 12 oz of each beer, not of the mix | 153 as bottled | | Name in Ireland | Half and half, with the two beers named | Not a traditional Irish pub call | A U.S. brewery blend, not a pub pour |

The Black and Blue tastes of orange peel and coriander under the roast, because that is how Blue Moon Brewing Co. builds Belgian White. Bass or Harp under the same stout tastes of biscuit malt and hops. Yuengling’s bottled Black & Tan, at 4.6 percent, is porter and lager already married in Pottsville. Pick the pale beer, chill both packages, and float the stout over a spoon. If the line fails, change the stout and the temperature.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Black and Tan drink made of?

A Black and Tan is pale ale or pale lager in the bottom of the glass and a nitrogenated stout, usually Guinness Draught in the United States, floated on top. Bass Pale Ale is the common American pale; Harp Lager is the common Irish-lager pairing. Each layer in a 16-ounce U.S. pint starts near 8 fluid ounces.

Which beer should be poured first in a Black and Tan?

Pour the pale ale or pale lager first, then float the stout. The pale beer is the floor; the nitrogenated stout is the film. Reversing the order dumps the dark beer through an empty glass and leaves no surface for a spoon. Let the pale layer go still first.

Is a Black and Tan just Guinness and Bass?

Guinness Draught over Bass Pale Ale is the pairing older U.S. bar cards print, and Bass’s archived Anheuser-Busch sheet listed that serve. Harp Lager, Yuengling Traditional Lager, and other pale beers are used as the base. Yuengling’s own Black & Tan is a 60/40 porter-and-lager blend bottled as one beer.

How do I make a Black and Tan with Guinness?

Chill Guinness Draught and a pale ale or lager. Pour 8 fluid ounces of the pale beer into a clean 16-ounce U.S. pint. Open the Draught can, pour it into a second glass at 45 degrees, and wait 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon the settled stout onto the pale beer.

How does a Black and Blue differ?

A Black and Blue uses the same nitrogenated-stout float over Blue Moon Belgian White, a 5.4 percent ABV wheat ale, instead of pale ale or lager. The method, glass, and spoon are unchanged. The pale half tastes of orange peel and coriander. Retail 12-ounce panels list Blue Moon at 168 calories.

What name is appropriate when ordering in Ireland?

Order a half and half, and name the two beers, commonly Guinness and Harp. VinePair and Wine Enthusiast both flag “Black and Tan” as a poor call in Ireland because it also names RIC recruits from 1920. Sir Hamar Greenwood told Parliament those men were RIC constables.