Beer colour: EBC, SRM and Lovibond
EBC, SRM and Lovibond with a preview of the colour itself.
Beer colour is recorded on three scales: the American SRM, the European EBC and the old visual Lovibond scale. SRM and EBC are defined through light absorbance at 430 nm, so conversion between them is exact, while Lovibond remains approximate.
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How the scales relate
Both modern scales are the same measurement in different units: the sample is passed through light at a wavelength of 430 nm and the absorbance is converted into colour. The scales use different coefficients, hence the constant ratio of 1.97.
One SRM unit is 12.7 absorbance units, one EBC unit is 25. So a beer at 10 SRM is 19.7 EBC, not 10 EBC: the numbers on these scales coincide only for very pale beer.
SRM = 12.7 · A430 EBC = 25 · A430 EBC = SRM · 25 / 12.7 ≈ 1.97 · SRM
Reference points by style
| Style | SRM |
|---|---|
| Light lager, pilsner | 2–4 |
| Wheat beer | 3–6 |
| Pale ale, IPA | 5–12 |
| Amber, bitter | 12–17 |
| Porter, stout | 20–35 |
| Imperial stout | 40–70 |
The Lovibond scale
Lovibond is a visual scale from 1883: colour was compared against a set of tinted glass slides. It is still used to denote malt colour, and these are the numbers that stand in recipes next to the name of the malt.
Conversion to SRM is approximate: with dark malts, different roasting methods give a different shade at the same colour value. For pale malt the scales almost coincide; for roasted malt they diverge noticeably.
SRM = 1.3546 · °L − 0.76
Why the on-screen colour is approximate
- Colour is calculated for a layer 5 cm thick — the standard cuvette in brewing colorimetry. In a thin glass the beer will look paler, in a thick mug darker.
- The shade depends on the lighting: incandescent, fluorescent and daylight have different spectra, and the model is built on D65 daylight.
- Hazy beer — with yeast, protein or wheat — looks paler and whiter than a clear beer of the same colour.
- A monitor renders colour in its own way: calibration and the colour profile shift the shade more than the difference between 15 and 17 SRM.