Do you prefer brown or orange food?
Dispelling a great myth about beer
"Do you prefer light or dark beer?" is the response I often receive when I ask for a list of available beers at a restaurant or pub. A combination of politeness and impatience prevents me from beginning a diatribe as to why this is a meaningless question, and instead I ask for the complete list.
Asking whether a person prefers light or dark beer is like asking whether a person prefers brown or orange food. The colour of a beer or an item of food has no relationship to its flavour, body, texture or aroma. In fact, the colour of a beer is indicative of nothing – other than its colour, of course.
Beer derives its colour from three sources: the grains used to brew the beer, other flavour ingredients (fruits or spices, for example) and artificial colour additives. In fact, the dark beers offered by certain brewers are exactly the same as their golden counterparts, with brown food colouring added.
Flavour, on the other hand, while affected by many of the same factors that impact colour, is determined by many, many additional factors. Without downplaying the importance of each of these factors, one of the largest determinants of a beer's flavour that has absolutely no impact on the beer's colour is the yeast used to ferment the beer.
For a little fun, try this experiment. Go down to your favourite beer retailer and purchase a bottle of Brew Brothers Black Pilsner (a Canadian-brewed German-style Schwarzbier) and a bottle of Delirium Tremens (a Belgian golden ale). Both are complex and flavourful award-winning beers, and good representatives of their respective styles.
Try the Black Pilsner first, as its much lighter body and delicate and soft flavours will be washed out if you sample the very full-bodied, sharp, alcoholic and slightly fusel flavours of Delirium Tremens first. Despite what most people expect upon mere visual inspection of these beers, Black Pilsner is less heavy and rich, while Delirium Tremens is more viscous and sharp.
Black Pilsner gets its dark colour, in part, from the use of a small amount of a type of malted barley called black patent. As the name implies, black patent malt is very dark, which is the result of roasting at a very high temperature, and the use of even a small amount of it adds a substantial amount of colour to the final beer. However, the use of soft brewing water and delicate noble hops and the fermentation of the beer by a pilsner yeast results in very soft and subtle flavours. Had Brew Brothers used the exact same recipe, but fermented the beer using an ale yeast, the colour would be identical, but the flavours would be amplified, fruitier and less clean.
On the other hand, Delirium Tremens is brewed almost exclusively with pale malt, which is very light in colour because it is dried at a low temperature. A large amount of pale malt is used, along with additional brewing sugars to increase the alcohol content. The absence of any dark grains in the brewing results in its light colour, but the high alcohol content, the large amount of hops added to provide adequate balance, and the fermentation of the beer by a special Belgian ale yeast combine to create the harsh, full-bodied flavours.
So next time you're in a restaurant, you'll know not to order a dark beer and some brown food. |
