From Grain to Glass
Demystifying Dark Beer By Mark Heise
The colour black can be bold and intimidating; some may even associate it with darkness and evil. Dark beers are often viewed in a similar (lack of) light; menacing and something that should be avoided. But as I have come to learn, there is good in everything once you understand it, so let’s see what all the fuss is about and set the record straight.
beer may seem about as appealing as a glass of blue milk. So what makes a beer black? Raw barley is very pale, but during the malting process, it is kilned (aka “roasted”) to some degree to stop the germination process but also to contribute colour and flavour. Pale malt is kilned at a low temperature for a short period of time which keeps the colour light. Roasted malt is roasted at a much higher temperature, turning it black. This process is almost identical to roasting coffee beans; the raw beans are pale green, then kilned to create a whole spectrum of light, medium, dark and extra dark roasts. The comparison does not end there, as roasted malt has the same sort of flavours as coffee, ranging from smooth to bitter, with notes of chocolate and nuts.
Most beer produced in the world today has a pale straw yellow colour, but this was not always the case. It was not until the late 1800s when truly “pale” malt was created, and even then many brewers did not use it (such as those in Munich and Dublin) as it clashed with the mineral content of the local water. However, we have been trained to think of beer as a yellow product, so the idea of a drinking a black 33