Judging beer colour and clarity before you take a sip

How to look at a beer

Hold the glass at arm's length against a white background, a sheet of paper or a white wall, in good daylight or neutral white light. Warm yellow bar lighting makes every beer look more golden than it is. Tilt the glass slightly and look through the beer at its widest point, then at the edge where it is thinner.

Look for three things: colour, clarity and head. This guide covers the first two. The colour of the beer at the edge of the glass is often lighter and gives a truer reading than the dark centre.

Glass size changes what you see. The same beer looks darker in a wide pint glass than in a narrow taster, because light passes through more liquid. When you compare beers, use identical glasses filled to the same level, or your colour notes will describe the glassware rather than the beer.

Colour and what makes it

Beer colour comes almost entirely from malt. Pale malts give straw and gold. Crystal and caramel malts give amber, copper and red-brown. Roasted malts give brown and black. A little colour also forms during the boil as sugars and proteins react.

Brewers measure colour on two scales. SRM (Standard Reference Method) is used mostly in the US. EBC (European Brewery Convention) is used in Europe and much of the world. An EBC value is roughly twice the SRM value. As a rough guide:

• Straw, pale lager or Berliner weisse: about 2 to 3 SRM, 4 to 6 EBC.
• Gold, pilsner or helles: about 3 to 5 SRM, 6 to 10 EBC.
• Amber, Vienna lager or amber ale: about 10 to 17 SRM, 20 to 33 EBC.
• Brown, brown ale or dunkel: about 17 to 30 SRM.
• Black, stout or porter: 30 SRM and above, 60 EBC and above.

Colour sets expectations. A golden beer suggests bready, light malt. An amber beer suggests caramel. A black beer suggests roast. When colour and flavour disagree, a judge takes note. A black IPA, for example, is meant to look like a stout but taste mostly of hops.

Clarity: brilliant, clear, hazy, opaque

Judges use a simple ladder: brilliant (you could read through it), clear, slightly hazy, hazy and opaque.

Many styles are meant to be clear or brilliant. A pilsner, helles or most pale ales should be bright. Others are meant to be cloudy. German hefeweizen, Belgian witbier and New England IPA are hazy by design, from wheat proteins, yeast in suspension or heavy dry hopping. Our guide to hazy versus clear beer covers the styles on each side.

So clarity is judged against the style. A hazy hefeweizen is correct. A hazy pilsner is a fault.

When haze points to a problem

Unexpected haze has a few common causes, which our guide to beer haze causes explores in detail.

• Chill haze. Proteins and polyphenols bind together when the beer is very cold, making it cloudy. It often clears as the beer warms in the glass. Not harmful, but a sign of incomplete stabilisation.
• Yeast haze. Yeast that has not settled out. Common in young or unfiltered beer. In bottle-conditioned beer, a layer of yeast at the bottom is normal. Pour carefully to leave it behind if you want a clear glass.
• Permanent haze. Haze that stays at any temperature, from protein, starch or other compounds. Sometimes a process issue, sometimes a sign of age.
• Infection. A beer that was clear and has become hazy, especially with sourness, film or gushing, may be infected.

Haze from temperature cycling is common in India, where beer often travels warm and is chilled only at the point of sale. A beer that left the brewery bright can arrive with a chill haze.

Writing it down

Keep it short and specific: "deep gold, brilliant" or "pale straw, hazy, white head" or "near black, ruby at the edge, opaque". Note anything unusual, such as particles floating, a layer of sediment or unexpected haze.

Judges score appearance first because it frames everything else. Our guide to how beer judges score explains how appearance fits into the full score sheet. Knowing when an appearance problem points to a brewing problem is where structured sensory training adds the most.