Schwartzbier Tasting

Here is a tasting of the second lager have brewed my Schwartzbier. I wanted a beer that was nice to drink as San Diego's freezing winter ends and the spring heats up. I have actually been drinking this beer for a few weeks now and I am really happy with it. I wanted to aim for a mixture of an American and German style, but my beer ended up on the more American style.

Aroma: The beer has a very clean aroma, with a slight maltiness followed by a light roast. No hop aroma.

Appearance: The beer has a very dark color, almost black until held to the light, when a garnet hue is visible. The head is dark tan almost espresso in color much more stout-like in color.

Flavor: The flavor is clean with very little Munich malt flavor, bummed about this. The dominate flavor is a nice bitter sweet dark chocolate/roastiness. There is not burnt flavors, but a little roastier than I had hoped for. The beer finishes with a slight roast derived dryness leaning towards astringency, followed by a light maltiness. No hop flavor detected. It does leave my mouth tasting like I just had a piece of 70-80% cocoa chocolate (which I love).

Mouthfeel: Nice medium body, with a strong carbonation. The beer, as mentioned above has a slight astringency.

Overall: The beer is a very nice beer, but not a "black Pils" due to the lack of hop bitterness/aroma and the fact that there is too much roastiness. I will reduce the roast malt and increase the dark Munich malt as a well as the hops.