I sampled this beer in the well-appointed restaurant located within the historic Budweiser Budvar NP brewery in Ceske Budejovice. The Dark is a new product for this brewery that built its much-maligned name on its pilsner beer.

Served in a handsome half-liter mug, the beer boasts a huge, billowy off-white head that perches in a meticulously precarious measure over the rim of the glass. It possesses a deep, dark color with some reddish hues at the edges. The aroma is slightly sweet, but makes no mark as either aggressively sweet or noticeably bitter. It is in part astringent, with some hints of Saaz hop, which is very light and fresh in its influence.

When the beer is served cold, the roasted malt flavors explode on the palate in a most unexpected manner. While bitterness is the flavor most often found at the extreme edges of temperature, here the beer boasts a real wallop of roasted flavors upfront. The roasted flavors are a welcome break from the average, boring European dark lager. Though they boast impressive and foreboding colors, most such lagers lack any punch in the roasted malt profile. Not this beer. This isn't your typical, cloying East European lager.

The Budvar Dark is a very delicate beer. Despite its big roasted flavors and dark hue, it remains light bodied. As it warms, the beer predictably gains sweetness. It eventually develops some nice creamy flavors but the beer's wonderful roasted flavors never fail to play on the palate.

The brewery uses the same yeast for this beer as it does with its Budvar pilsner product. The Budvar Dark is available in select export markets and only in draft. For those stateside drinkers who wish to stick it to A-B but wish to branch out from the original, pilsner, there is some good news. The company may release a keg of this beer at a special event during the Great American Beer Festival in Denver in October.