Fuggled Review of the Year - Dark

On third day of Christmas, we move on to the undeniably dark beers of the world, porter, stout, dunkel, tmavé, et al, including some brown ales simply because you can only see though them by holding them up to the light, ah the delights of capricious whimsy. Here are the runners and riders for today.

Virginia

• Porter - Port City Brewing
• No Veto Brown - Three Notch'd Brewing
• Schwartzbier - Devils Backbone

Honorable mentions:

Britchin' Brown - Stable Craft Brewing;

USA

• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, VT
• Dunkel - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC
• Narwahl 2018 - Sierra Nevada Brewing, CA/NC

Honorable mentions:

Dunkel - Hofbräuhaus Cleveland, OH; Porter - Sierra Nevada, CA/NC; Trösten - Von Trapp Brewing, VT

Rest of World

• Altbairisch Dunkel - Brauerei Ayinger, DE
• Märzen - Schlenkerla, DE
• Fabián 14° tmavé - Pivovar Hostomice

Honorable mentions:

Oatmeal Stout - Samuel Smiths, England; Black - Belhaven Brewery, Scotland; Urbock - Schlenkerla, DE

Some absolutely glorious beers there, and that is just with the honorable mentions, several of which came very close to breaking into the top three in each regional category. As a devotee of the dark beer arts, I could happily drink just the honorable mentions and be a happy camper, imagine then the ecstasy of only being able to drink the top three. Cutting 9 down to an ultimate three then was insanely difficult as there have been plenty of occasions where I have preferred, for example, Devils Backbone Schwartzbier over Port City Porter, it's so often a question of context.

• Virginia - Porter, Port City Brewing
• USA - Dunkel, Von Trapp Brewing
• Rest of World - Märzen, Schlenkerla

Carrying on the theme of context, it is that factor that decided the winner of the Fuggled Dark Beer of 2019. Drinking a legendary beer in a legendary brewpub in a legendary beer town just cannot be beaten, and so obviously the winner is Schelnkerla Märzen. As I mentioned in my post about drinking in Bamberg, I have loved rauchbier since I first have bottled Schlenkerla in Prague, and I drink a couple of litres of it every month still to this day, so having it on tap was a nigh on religious moment. I didn't expect though for the divine itself to be even more divine, but it was, and I savoured every drop of that holy communion.