What Is SRM? The Beer Enthusiast In You Should Know

Don’t we love our beer? Ordering the same one every time we go out, gulping every sip as we have and knowing very well which side dish to order with it…

But before we reached this point, we were introduced to the brewed drink by someone or the other. And we tried a few before settling for one that suited our palate, which happened to have a specific colour tone. While some prefer the darker beers, others prefer the light ones. And these colours require a scale to be measured in the beer world, which brings us to SRM.

SRM stands for Standard Reference Method. It’s a scale used to determine the colour of a beer, including your favourite ones. It is calculated by passing light through the beer and measuring how much of it is observed by the beverage. 

A beam of light, at a wavelength of 430 nm, is passed through 1 cm of beer and the attenuation of the light is measured on the SRM scale. Using the scale, more than 90% of the beer’s colour information can be characterized. While the SRM scale works perfectly for light and dark beers, it has its limitations when exposed to fruit beers like the Irish Red and blueberry beers.

As seen in the image above, the colour of a beer can tell a lot about its style, categorizing your Witbiers, American Pale Ales, English Brown Ales and Stouts into different colours. If you tend to like beers of a specific colour tone and style, you can always check out a new beer’s SRM to help you decide between your many options! Cheers