Tonight I poured a cold beer into a tall, clear glass and then poured an equal volume of water next to it. Then I proceeded to add dye to the water, mixing colors to approximate the color of the beer, taking notes of amounts added per unit volume. I will translate the results into plastic. I wish I had an extra $2k to invest in a SPEC20 spectrophotometer. Then I could get at the true colors using Beer's Law instead of eyeball spectroscopy. Did you know that every beer is assigned a SRM value?
Color based on Standard Reference Method (SRM)[edit]
| SRM/Lovibond | Example | Beer color | EBC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Pale lager, Witbier, Pilsener, Berliner Weisse | 4 | |
| 3 | Maibock, Blonde Ale | 6 | |
| 4 | Weissbier | 8 | |
| 6 | American Pale Ale, India Pale Ale | 12 | |
| 8 | Weissbier, Saison | 16 | |
| 10 | English Bitter, ESB | 20 | |
| 13 | Biere de Garde, Double IPA | 26 | |
| 17 | Dark lager, Vienna lager, Marzen, Amber Ale | 33 | |
| 20 | Brown Ale, Bock, Dunkel, Dunkelweizen | 39 | |
| 24 | Irish Dry Stout, Doppelbock, Porter | 47 | |
| 29 | Stout | 57 | |
| 35 | Foreign Stout, Baltic Porter | 69 | |
| 40+ | Imperial Stout | 79 |
23 comments:
Now I want a beer.
Cheers, deborah.
Lem: Nice choice of blog banner quote. I try to watch "To Kill A Mockingbird" around Halloween every year. I read the book once and found it infinitely richer in detail than the movie, but the movie was pretty good.
What a nice segue...
Though, I hope, you're not suggesting that beers get their coloring through dyes, and not their brewing.
I don't think you are.
If they are, then the world is too corrupt to save.
X-Ray: Let's be clear: beer gets its color from malted barley. My plastic beers get their color from synthetic dyes.
It would be interesting to know if there is a molecular resemblance between two.
The chromophores/dyes that is.
Thanks for the response, my faith in humanity is somewhat restored,
Thanks Chickl
I didn't see Coors Light on the chart. Must be about -3.
Dear Chickl, eyeball spectroscopy. Don't underestimate the power of it.
Ever try a green beer from the Philippines? I once won a beer tasting of international brews. Not being a beer drinker I judged entirely based upon color. You've shown how that worked.
Bunch of alcoholics here.
(1) Looks like there's no place for Rodenbach on that scale.
(2) Bunch of alcoholics here.
In light of recent developments I told myself I'd stop posting comments about beer and my own drunkenness. Didn't want to create temptations or be a bad influence or something like that. Cervantes wrote that one ought not speak of halters in a hanged man's house.
But maybe I'm being silly in my hesitancy. Chickelit doesn't see a problem, obviously.
Lem, how about a ruling? Would you rather we all just cool it with the casual references to drinking?
Eric, My comment was tongue in cheek. I know Aridog would not want us to change the things about which we talk. And, I am fairly certain Lem feels the same way. Alcoholics know they live in a world surrounded by drink. Almost all AA folks I know talk about drink often. That's what they do @ meetings!
I refuse to use emoticons. But, I guess I have to announce my sarcasm. Anyone who knows me should realize much of what I say is sarcastic. But, even Sixty didn't pick up on it yesterday. That's on me.
(1) Eric, My comment was tongue in cheek.
I know. It was obvious.
A long time ago I used to worry that people on the internet wouldn't get where I was coming from.
Now? Not so much.
(2) You can tell a whole lot about the quality of another person's character by how quick (and upon what evidence) that person is to assume the worst about another person.
I have the opposite problem, arguably. A tendency to over-estimate people.
Fortunately, the harm that sometimes follows is usually nothing more serious than my own eventual disappointment.
I also thought your meaning yesterday was obvious.
No. It's on Sixty.
Not that it matters all that much.
Some people get off on being hostile.
Chicklet:
Two questions...
1. Do some Brewers really add dye to beer? How do you know this?
2. Surely you didn't let your beer sit there getting warm? What's wrong with you?
Oops, that's four questions. Whaddyagunnado? (Wait, is that five...?)
1. No
2. I don't
3. I didn't
4. Nothing
Christy said...
Ever try a green beer from the Philippines?
No. It would be easy to make a green beer. Maybe as a prop for St. Paddy's Day.
Coors light is essentially soda water. It makes a pretty good scotch and soda, if you add a shot or two of scotch.
I once ordered a scotch and soda in Mexico and got what tasted like as scotch and 7-up. They didn't know what a scotch and soda was. They thought it was a scotch and any old soda, not club soda. Same thing happened to me once in Montreal. I should have ordered a scotch and coors.
@ken: I can recreate the color of light american lager. It's a bit like champagne or pinot grigio -- very pale yellow.
I also made a fake scotch on the rocks, using real whiskey stones. It looks pretty good.
@April: I'm surprised you know that term, "eyeball spectroscopy."
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