schwarzbier

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noun

A dark lager that has an opaque, black colour with hints of chocolate or coffee flavours, and is generally around 5% ABV, similar to stout in that it is made from roasted malt, which gives it its dark colour.

Scrabble 30

Meanings

nounschwarzbier (countable and uncountable, plural schwarzbiers)

plural schwarzbiers

  1. countableuncountableA dark lager that has an opaque, black colour with hints of chocolate or coffee flavours, and is generally around 5% ABV, similar to stout in that it is made from roasted malt, which gives it its dark colour.

    These black lagers had flavor all right, but none of them were real schwarzbiers.

    2005, The New Brewer, page 32
    2 more examples

    Heralded for their dark colors and bittersweet chocolate flavors, schwarzbiers are represented on U.S. shores by Köstritzer Black Beer, imported by Friedlin & Assoc. Inc.

    1981, Market Watch, page 29

    Once, at a traditional charcoal-making plant, I got a bottle of schwarzbier, a kind of black lager, and another day, just east of the former East Germany–West Germany border, I happened on Kukki’s Erbsensuppe, a roadside stand selling bowls of thick split-pea soup with bacon that had opened just after reunification.

    2013, Matt Gross, The Turk Who Loved Apples: And Other Tales of Losing My Way Around the World, Da Capo Press, →ISBN

Origin

  1. GermanSchwarzbier
  2. Englishschwarzbier

From German Schwarzbier (literally “black beer”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

schwarzbier. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/schwarzbier

MLA

“schwarzbier.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/schwarzbier. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “schwarzbier,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/schwarzbier.

Source: schwarzbier on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.