In a world that includes black IPAs, why get hung up on the color of your beer? Sure, in a homebrew competition, where beer is evaluated against style guidelines, the difference between 5 and 10 SRM can determine whether your Munich Helles (expecting 3–5 SRM) is in style. It turns out, though, that even for the casual drinker, color can impact how a beer is perceived. A deeper hue can set the expectation of a richer malt profile. At the other end, a lighter tinted stout may seem thin-bodied, regardless of its gravity or roast profile.
That’s why I still pay attention to the color and try to control it, even when I brew beers that don’t fall into a classic style. If you’re already using brewing software such as BeerSmith, it might automatically present a color swatch based on the recipe, but you can work this out with nothing more than a calculator. It’s just math, not magic.
Running the Numbers
Beer color is generally assessed as Standard Reference Method (SRM) values, which are determined by measuring the attenuation of light passing through the beer. Without special equipment, we can match a beer against a color guide to estimate the SRM value. That’s fine when you already have the beer, but we want to figure out the color in advance.