There's no end to the learning Roger, I'm a relative newbie as well but I've fallen into it pretty hard. Lagers are definitely tricky with the temp control, I haven't ventured down that path yet although I've been tempted.
I brewed up a batch of black IPA yesterday, or "Dark Side IPA" as I'm going to call it. While making my recipe I ran across he debate between black IPA and hoppy stout. it was an interesting topic, but it basically comes down to brewers choice for naming. This was a pretty basic IPA recipe (although I think I got overly complicated with the five types of hops), but with about 5-6% weyermann carafe III special in the grain bill. This stuff had a really interesting small, almost like a caramel popcorn, although after sparging I swear the whole thing smelled like sesame oil. The beer in the fermenter looks lie chocolate milk, but I'm trying to get the texture down to the thinner side. Really looking forward to this guy being ready
Thinking about using this design for the cap:
