About beer color

[Spauld]

I purchased this little translucent SRM scale the other day. I thought it would be cool to have something clear, that you could see through and compare directly to a glass of bier. I wondered if it could tell me how close the recipe calculations came to the “actual” color of the finished product? Of course as I was completing my online order, in the back of my mind I realized that there probably is no way to definitively determine this, since any given bier could be served from a number of different glassware shapes and sizes. So I started researching this a bit last weekend and I found an interesting article about beer color. I tried to ‘share it’, but my only options were Facebook (which I dumped from my life last fall) and Twitter….which I’ve never engaged with. So, if interested…here is the address:

https://oct.co/essays/beer-color-not-clear-it-seems

I’ve always wondered what the “standard” was for determining SRM (standard reference method) beer color? After all, when I’m sparging the wort for my Helles Bier, 10 gallons of run-off sure looks more like a dark, orangy Marzenbier as it sits in the grant. That same bier flowing through the clear tubing from fermenter to cask is so pale it could almost be tap water. So I guess size does matter….at least when it comes to bier color. The larger the container, the more volume of liquid there is to refract light, so it will appear darker. I captured a photo from the above mentioned article (see attached). The author claims that the bier in the pitcher is the same as in the glass. They look like two different brews for sure!

So, I’ll have fun messing around with my little SRM chart, but I guess it’s just for fun since from what I can tell, there are far too many factors that will determine how the finished product will present to the drinker. Most notably, clarity of the finished product and SIZE and SHAPE of the serving vessel.

Attachments:

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   Same-bier-appears-different-based-on-container.jpg
   

[Sam]

Cool. I’ve read there is a ‘standard’ for the size and shape of the glass for color comparisons. I might have read it in Palmer’s book. I’ll see if I can remember to look for it.

Sam

Serving:
Genmaicha Brown Ale
Munich Dunkel
IPA

Conditioning:

Fermenting:
House Amber

Planning:
?

[Author]

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