A while back I was with my wonderful family in a Lazy Dog Cafe (it's a restaurant which dogowners bring their dogs to) and on the drink menu was listed Black & Tan (Guinness over Bass) but also Eclipse (Guinness over Blue Moon).

Blue Moon is a "Belgian style Wheat Ale" brewed in Colorado, which is rather popular here in California.

Being a big Black & Tan fan (I even have a Black & Tan spoon) I was intrigued so I ordered that Eclipse.

It was fantastic! The best thing ever, it seemed to me. Since then I've become a big Eclipse fan and I've introduced it to many others at Highland Games, parties, and the like.

I've tried some of the other variants such as "BlackSmith" (Guinness over Smithwicks) and "BlackCastle" (Guinness over Newcastle Brown Ale) but to me they don't have that magical zing of the Eclipse.

Some of these things are mentioned here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Tan

Any XMarkers out there who are big Black & Tan fans? Or a fan of a variant? I hear that Scotland has their own version but I don't remember what it is.

That Wikipedia article mentions two Australian variants. Any others?