The black and tan is a drink of beauty. It’s about balance and harmony. It’s right up there with yin and yang, light and dark, good and evil. And sucking on one has this uncanny ability to make you feel like you’re wearing a long, wizardly beer cloak.

Excluding some tepid Guinness and Bass ale concoctions we slurped at bars early in our beer career, our first deep and true black and tan experience was in Portland: Deschutes’ Obsidian stout mixed with Mirror Pond ale. The thick, oil slick of their renown stout is perfect for mixing with a crispy light ale — it’ll probably always be the ideal by which we measure all black and tans forever. If we lived in Portland, we would drink nothing else.

But we don’t; we live in California — where any number of flavor combinations lay at our disposal. To celebrate that enviable diversity, we put three ales to the black and tan test: Speakeasy’s Prohibition ale, Lagunitas Censored ale, North Coast Old Stock ale. We poured each one into a glass followed by Anderson Valley Oatmeal Stout and took note on how well each one cooperated. Indulgent, yes, but extremely necessary. And if you happen to drink your beers in the state of Oregon… well all of these are NoCal and reachable. In Portland, try John’s Marketplace.

Prohibition Ale

This amber-ish brew seemed the best choice among hoppier beers. Usually the bitter twist of a hop heavy beer wouldn’t lend itself to the delicate balancing act required of a “tan,” but we thought we’d give it a shot.

The result was totally drinkable, but nothing we’d repeat. The hops break through the stout like a National Geographic ship cruising through the North Pole. The herby aroma even makes it to the surface. But all in all, the combo didn’t fit — we weren’t, after all, looking for a ‘black and hops.’ Part of the problem stems from Prohibition’s own identity crises: it doesn’t know if it’s an amber or an IPA. It’s even won a medal in both categories in the World Beer Championship. And there’s no room in a black and tan for indecision.

Censored Ale

Annoying packaging gimmick aside, this is one of Lagunitas’ better beers. It’s light on booze and strong on red-tinted, sweet caramel maltiness. It’s trusty on its own.

When drizzled into a stout, especially this one, Censored knows how to play the part. The robust oatmeal heaviness led the way with the copper ale hitting tongue buttons on first sip and somewhere in the middle, without tampering with the sour stout aftertaste.

This match felt classic: It was kinda like pouring milk on a bowl of cereal.

Old Stock Ale

If you’ve had Old Stock before, you’re probably scoffing. Let’s just say we conducted said test on St. Patrick’s Day, so we were feeling cocky. (We also ate a large green meal and it still wasn’t enough padding to keep from getting dizzy what with the 11.5% ABV on this fucker.)

This brew is extremely toasty and dry. We imagine it’s what weathered old beer guys like to age in their basement and go down and play with when they’re mad at their wives. The immediate notes are masticated fruit and leather, straight up. Paired with oatmeal stout was ultra heavy, definitely too much but in a good-bad way, not a bad-bad way. The rolling aftertaste has more carbonation in it than most strong ales, which actually worked quite well. One danger with a traditional black and tan is the slightly stale, bubble-less mouthfeel of the thing. Here it was drinkable partly because of how it danced down your throat. This was not your average black and, but we dug it. We kept drinking all afternoon and dug ourselves a comfy little K-hole that was hard to crawl out of too though.

And the winner is...