Have you ever had a Schwarzbier and thought, "I wish this was a bit more malt-complex?" And have you ever drank a Munich Dunkel and thought, "I kind of wish this had a bit more roast to dry it out?" Well, friend, I have an answer for you: Czech Dark Lager. My first exposure to this style wasn't all that auspicious: it was a skunked-out bottle (yes, even dark beers can skunk, I'm sad to report from personal experience) of a mass-produced version of the style, and it was thoroughly unimpressive. Luckily, over the years I've come across a few genuinely inspiring versions. So, we have an interesting style that is semi-hard to find commercially…sounds like just the kind of beer that we homebrewers should be lining up to make! Add this one to your dark lager rotation, at least once or twice, and I'll be surprised if you don't start finding excuses to brew it.
STYLE
As previously noted, this beer isn't just a Czech knock-off of a Schwarzbier or Munich Dunkel. Neither is it quite the same as an English Porter, though that might be the closest comparable style. What we have here is definitively a session lager, but one with outsized malt complexity and (in this version of the style) complementary roast character and some spicy hops flavor. ABV can be quite low - we're only going to 4.6% here - but the flavor makes it seem much grander, thanks to some complex base and light character malts. Bitterness is modest - between 20 and 30 IBUs - but is accentuated by the chocolate malts. We also have the same smooth bittering found in most Plzen-inspired beers, thanks to a water adjustment to soften things up. Finally, don't get too distracted by this as a "dark" lager (or a "black beer," as it is sometimes described in the original Czech) - it's dark-ish, but think in terms of dark flavor than dark color.
RECIPE
As with most of the Czech lager recipes you'll run across, this one benefits from using a good floor-malted Pilsner as its base. If you can't get fresh malt, though, you may want to improvise: fresh Maris Otter is better than stale floor-malted Pils, and if that's your best choice you can augment your light-malt complexity with some Vienna or Munich and maybe some Crystal 10L. But assuming you have access to a homebrew shop with good pull-through, you can trust that the fresh floor-malted Pils will give you lots of complexity without the tinkering and trial-and-error: start with six pounds here. To that we'll add one pound each of Victory malt and Caramunich malt, which will really ramp up the rich, toasty flavors in the beer. Last, add three-quarters of a pound of pale chocolate malt: it will impart lots of light coffee and chocolate notes with a hint of burnt husk. If you're really committed to a very dark version - and if you'll be entering this in competition, I might recommend it - you can adjust color with some midnight wheat or Carafa Special III. Otherwise, leave it be; it should end up a nice medium-brown with ruby highlights.