I hope this doesn’t happen to you as much as it does me…

Mr. Patron: “Excuse me bartender, I have never heard of Poindexter’s Pin-Head ale, can you describe it?”
Bartender: “Yeah, it’s kind of dark…..

Okay, Mr. Patron now knows that Pinhead ale is “kind of dark.” Does that mean dark as in coffee? Or dark as in “darker than Budweiser”? Color is a very relative thing. What’s amber to me could be dark for someone used to drinking American lagers. Besides, the color of a beer does little to describe the flavor of beer. For example, the next time you drive by Dunbar, stop at Aldi’s and pick-up a six-pack of Wernesgruner Pils from Germany. This beer is nearly as light and yellow as Miller or Bud, but boy does it pack a refreshingly bitter punch and is a great example of Northern German Pilsner. Amber Bock is in fact amber beer, but it tastes nothing like Anchor Steam, which is also Amber in color.

Beer is such a complex beverage, with so many flavor dimensions that its color tells us little about its flavor. The color of a beer is determined by the amount of specialty grains (kilned, stewed or roasted) used in the recipe. Similar to coffee beans, malted barley kernels are toasted various ways to produce differing flavor and color intensities. The brewing process itself can also affect color. Wort is the sweet liquid that eventually becomes beer. Part of the brewing process is to boil the wort. The sugars in the wort will darken as they are heated; they literally “caramelize” as they are boiled. This caramelization gives a totally different “dark” flavor to beer than the “dark” flavor contributed by roasted barley. Some beers are boiled for several hours to enhance caramel flavors in the finished product.

Hops and hop bitterness have no impact on a beer’s color, but the quantity and when they are added in the brewing process greatly impacts flavor. The same goes for ingredients like spices or minerals added to the brewing water. There are sweet stouts and dry stouts, and they are both as black as coal. An English brown ale can taste nutty and biscuity, while its doppelganger, German Rauchbier (a smoked brown lager) is as smoky as a strip of bacon. Final proof you simply cannot judge a beer by its color…

So, the next time your server gives you a nebulous answer like “It’s sort of pale, but dark” when asking about a beer on the menu, ask for a small taste. If they won’t allow you to taste, politely “vote with your feet” by walking out of that bar and onto the nearest reputable beer bar that knows their product.

By the way, I am really serious about the Wernesgruner Pils. It’s available at Aldi stores for $4.99 per Six-pack. The beer is produced in Saxony, a state of the former East Germany. The beer has maintained an authenticity and survived all those years while under Communist rule. I would pair this beer with fried seafood especially if the breading has a spicy kick…

Technical Gibberish: As tech-geeky as the brewing industry is, brewers have a very simple and one dimensional specification to denote a beer’s color. SRM (Standard Reference Measurement) is the variable that is used to describe the relative lightness or darkness of a beer (EBC scale is similar and still used in some European breweries). This scale really does not actually describe the beer’s color hue, e.g. whether it’s red or brown. Budweiser is around 2.0 SRM and Guiness stout is above 25.

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