For this week’s Feasibility Friday, David and Jason are testing the SRM, EBC, and Lovibond colors of beer from a local brewery. David has chosen some classic styles with published SRM values to compare to. These three color scales are popular in the beer industry as a quality assurance method; if the beer’s color changes between brews, it is an indication of an inconsistency in the brewing process. Maltsters use Lovibond to determine the color of the malt roast which directly influences the color of the beer. Just like with coffee roasting , darker malt makes for darker colored beer and lighter malt makes for lighter beer color. Historically, malting techniques were limited and many beers were geographically specific to the local malting techniques; new styles often arose from new malting technologies.
Today, brewers can get their hands on whatever ingredients they want. They can also use our spectrometers to measure the color of the malt, the boil, the wort, and the finished beer. For fun, we added in some holiday beers which are not brewed for consistency and tend to vary from year to year. Holiday brews typically have a rich body, warming finish, high SRM value (darker beer), and often include holiday spices like cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and allspice. Holiday beers are not to be confused with Pumpkin beers which are available a little earlier during the autumn harvest season and as such are classified as Autumnal beers. These complex beers have a medium amber to coppery-brown color and are often spiced (allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger) to be reminiscent of pumpkin pie, candied yams, or similar Thanksgiving themed dishes. We looked everywhere for a pumpkin beer to test in comparison with a holiday beer but they are so popular for Thanksgiving and Halloween get-togethers that they no-longer occupy store shelves!
