Error!
You've dropped your beer, buddy.
You've dropped your beer, buddy.
IBU is an abbreviation for the International Bitterness Units scale, a gauge of beer's bitterness. What IBUs measure are the parts per million of isohumulone found in a beer.
Isohumulone is the acid found in hops that gives beer its bitter bite. Though the IBU scale can be used as a general guideline for taste, with lower IBUs corresponding to less bitterness and vice versa, it's important to note that malt and other flavors can mask the taste of bitterness in beer.
Therefore, a beer with 20 IBUs and a minimal malt character may have significantly more bitter taste than a beer with 60 IBUs and a powerful malt profile.
Beer spans an endless array of colors. The deep black color and white foam of an Irish Stout, deep copper of a Pale Ale and cloudy light color of a Bavarian Wheat are all within the rainbow we call beer.
The system used to characterize beer color has its origins in the late 1800’s. The original lovibond system was created by J.W. Lovibond in 1883, and used colored slides that were compared to the beer color to determine approximate value. For decades, beer was compared to colored glass standards to determine the Lovibond color, and we still use the term “Degrees Lovibond” extensively today to describe the color of grains.
Over time, limitations of the Lovibond were recognized, not the least of which was that it depended upon a person’s vision – which naturally has variations in color perception from person to person. By the mid-20’th century, light spectrophotometer technology was developed. In 1950 the ASBC adopted the Standard Reference Method (SRM) color system. Separately the Europeans developed another visual system called the European Brewing Convention (EBC). It originally used visual comparison, but some 25 years later changed to use a spectrophotometer in a slightly different way than SRM.
ABV, or alcohol by volume, is the standard measurement, used worldwide, to assess the strength of a particular beer. The ABV scale is simple in the fact that the higher the ABV, the more alcohol that beer contains. Lighter beers range from 4-4.5% ABV, with percentages getting higher with heavier styles of beer.
Coming soon.