El Dunko Puts Corn in a Munich Dunkel and Means It

Powerhouse has merged a Bavarian dark lager with a Mexican adjunct lager, corn and all. El Dunko debuts tonight at a keg tapping, with smoked chicken mole tacos alongside.

• Style: Mexican-Style Munich Dunkel
• Release Date: 2026-09-25
• ABV: 5.4
• Powerhouse Brewing Co. (London, ON)

Corn is doing the interesting work here. Powerhouse Brewing Co. has built El Dunko as a Mexican-Style Munich Dunkel, which is to say it has taken a dark Bavarian lager and run it through the grain bill logic of a Mexican lager instead. The London, Ontario brewery credits corn for what it calls a smooth sweetness sitting underneath the darker malt character. The beer is out now in the taproom and online, and it gets a formal debut tonight.

The style name is not marketing shorthand. A Munich Dunkel is one of the older dark lagers, malt-forward and gently sweet, built for bread and toast character rather than roast bitterness. A Mexican-style lager runs in a different direction: lighter in body, crisp, and traditionally brewed with corn in the mash, which thins the body and leaves a clean, faintly sweet finish. Putting the two together means asking a beer to be rich and crisp at once. Powerhouse describes the result as bready, toasty and chocolatey, with the Mexican lager's smoothness cutting through.

The brewery's own tasting notes fill in the picture further. It lists a deep amber-brown pour with a creamy tan head, an aroma of toasted bread, biscuit and light chocolate, and a flavour of toasted malt with hints of cocoa finishing on a gentle bitterness. The numbers back up the restraint: 5.4 percent ABV and 21 IBU, low enough that the hops are structural rather than a flavour the drinker is meant to notice.

Powerhouse suggests drinking it with smoked chicken mole tacos, which is a more considered pairing than most brewery food notes manage. Mole carries cocoa and warm spice, and the brewery is pointing at a beer it says has chocolate notes of its own. That is a matching pairing rather than a contrasting one, and the corn in the glass has an obvious friend in the tortilla.

El Dunko is tapped tonight at 7PM at The Beer Kitchen as part of an Oktober Fall Fest keg tapping ceremony. Cans are available through the brewery's online shop in singles, six-packs and 24-packs.