Niall: “Hi, I noticed you feature Scottish Light (60/-) on your colour chart (http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/02/28/beer-styles-srm-color-chart/), but that it’s shown in the same colour range as 70/- and 80/-. Light is in fact extremely dark coloured, like stout or a really black Dunkel.  I hope this helps!”

Larry: “Check out this page for info from the BJCP:  http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style09.php Note the SRM (color) is the same for the three you mentioned. … We yanks don’t get around to brewing the Scottish Light style much, and that’s probably part of the misconception to begin with.”

Niall: “I can well imagine the problem – light is left over from the last century, when British brewers were asked to brew weaker beer to conserve ingredients in the post war period, as well as to stop the workforce turning up drunk. Light is getting harder to find here now,  it’s only available in a small minority of pubs.”

Analysis:

In this case the term ‘light’ applies to the gravity (alcohol content) of the beer but not the color. In the US we commonly associate light colored beers with a low gravity, and darker beers with a higher gravity.  We would also associate a session beer with a light colored beer. A session beer being one you can drink 4-5 of in an evening and not get bloated or tired of the flavor.  Scottish Light is dark colored, low alcohol, and easy drinking. Sounds like a summer stout or porter to me.   It would be an interesting challenge to get the flavor balance right, and still have a dark color.

Interestingly enough, some commercial breweries are trying similar things out, like Full Sail’s Black Session Lager (which happens to be a Czech style dark lager). Deschutes even made a Black IPA this year.

There is definitely a lot of room in the US for experimentation with the Scottish Light style.   Thank you Niall for writing in!

For the home brewer, learning the details of the beer style guidelines is a natural progression. One of the first things I learned was the difference between ales and lagers. This was quite a fascinating discovery and fueled my curiosity and need for more brewing equipment. From there, I went on to explore the categories and branch out into brewing different styles. I have not tried the Rauchbier (smoked beer) category yet, nor the sour ales or lambics, but there is always something new to try! At this point, when brewing for personal use or a party, what really matters is having fun.

Home brewers should begin to consider guidelines more closely when crafting their own recipes. When it comes to entering beer into a competition, the guidelines must be given careful attention. For most competitions, the judges will be comparing your beer against the standards set forth for the category. One path to becoming a master taster is to become a BJCP certified judge. The best way to start is to join your local home brew club and inquire.

BCJP currently has approximately 70 styles of beer, plus a handful of classifications for meads and ciders. AHA has over 120 styles and gets very intricate with subtle differences between categories.

BCJP guidelines include descriptions of: Aroma (smell), Appearance, Flavor, Mouthfeel, Overall Impression, History, Comments, Ingredients, Vital Statistics (OG, FG, IBU, SRM, ABV). Commercial examples are also provided. I found these useful when I wanted to try a commercial variety.
The following websites will guide you to both BJCP and AHA beer styles. Cheers!

AHA Website: http://www.beertown.org/
AHA Guidelines: http://www.bjcp.org/
BJCP PDF Guidelines: http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php (available in web or PDF format)

A stir plate is a simple machine consisting of a base which houses a motor with variable speed control. Fig 1. This motor is used to spin two precisely spaced magnets, which in turn will spin a magnetic stir bar inside your flask. The intent here is to use this stirring motion to:

1. Keep the yeast in suspension
2. Release CO2 from the starter solution
3. Continuously aerate the starter liquid

Fig 1.

There are several important guidelines to follow when utilizing a stir plate to create a starter:

1. Ideally, boil the starter wort in the flask that you will be using to create the starter, this will help to sanitize the flask.
2. DO NOT use an airlock on a stir plate starter as it will impede the ability of the stir plate to exchange CO2 from the fermentation for O2, which will help grow yeast.
3. DO use foil to cover the top of the flask instead of an airlock.
4. Ferment the starter at 75F – 80F. While not optimal for flavor production, you are trying to grow yeast, and warmer temperatures will accelerate this process.

By doing the above, you are creating the perfect growing environment for your yeast cells, allowing them to grow at a much greater rate than they would with the use of a simple starter with no stir plate. After the starter has fermented out completely (approx 24 hours), remove the starter from the stir plate and chill so that the yeast may settle. After a short period of time (several hours), the yeast will form a nice thick slurry in the bottom of the flask, allowing you decant the starter wort prior to pitching. Decanting is required since the wort has been oxidized and fermented at a higher temperature than is optimal for most yeasts (75F-80F recommended). Though this temperature is excellent for yeast growth, it does not leave a very favorable flavor in the starter liquid.

There are calculators that will help you to determine the size of starter needed, and/or the volume of yeast slurry needed to pitch the optimal number of yeast cells into your wort. One such calculator can be found at www.MrMalty.com. This calculator will allow you to enter all of the vital statistics about your wort so that it can properly calculate the number of yeast cells you will require, the required volume of your starter wort and the volume of yeast slurry that you must pitch to meet your ideal pitching rate.

Below is a side by side comparison of the number of yeast cells created in a 2L simple starter (no stir plate) and a 2L stir plate starter. The results may surprise you!

Starter volume: 2L
Amount of Yeast used in starter: (1) 11g packet
Fermentation Time: 24 hours
Temperature: 75F (recommended to quickly grow yeast)

Using the above criteria, a simple starter will produce approximately:

201 billion yeast cells
82 ml of yeast slurry

Using the above criteria, a stir plate starter will produce approximately:

307 billion yeast cells
124 ml of yeast slurry

As you can see from the above comparison, utilizing a stir plate you are able to increase by 50% the yeast count with the same amount of starter wort while using the same amount of yeast pitched into said starter. Conversely, you can also create the same amount of yeast in a stir plate starter as you are able to with a simple starter, with nearly half the starter volume. The latter is of great interest to lager brewers who will routinely need to create very large starters to reach the proper pitching rate for their lager beers. Lagers will routinely require a 3L-4L stir plate starter. If you utilized a simple starter (no stir plate), you would be in the neighborhood of 6L to reach the proper pitching rate.

Data for this chart comes from the the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).

Original gravity (OG) measures how much sugar is present in the wort before it is fermented. The final gravity (FG) is how much sugar is left over when fermentation is done. For a beer to fit into a certain style, each of these numbers must be within the specified range as the chart depicts.

A lower final gravity indicates a dry or crisp flavor, while a higher final gravity indicates a sweet or malty flavor.

The size of the gap between OG and FG can be used to calculate how much alcohol the beer contains.

Data for this chart comes from the the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).

Data for this chart comes from the the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).

Data for this chart comes from the the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).

Perhaps it’s time you call an alcohol helpline If you think you’ve been having too many alcoholic drinks lately, and you’re finding it hard to stop.

The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) puts out a set of style guidelines for beer, mead, and cider. Across the categories of beer there is a wide variation in average alcohol content, bitterness, and color. This article examines the average for OG, FG, ABV, IBU and SRM for the beer categories and reports the maximum and minimum values found and the accompanying styles.

Alcohol By Volume (ABV) :

Highest, 11.5%:
5. BOCK D. Eisbock

Lowest, 2.85%:
9. SCOTTISH AND IRISH ALE A. Scottish Light 60/-

International Bittering Units (IBUs) – Higher numbers represent a more bitter beer.

Highest, 60 for a tie between:
14. INDIA PALE ALE (IPA) C. Imperial IPA
19. STRONG ALE C. American Barleywine

Lowest at 0 for:
20. SOUR ALE D. Straight (Unblended) Lambic
21. SOUR ALE E. Gueuze
22. SOUR ALE F. Fruit Lambic

Standard Reference Method (SRM) – Measure of color on the Lovibond scale, higher means darker:

Highest, 40 for a tie between all the Stouts:
13. STOUT A. Dry Stout
13. STOUT B. Sweet Stout
13. STOUT C. Oatmeal Stout
13. STOUT D. Foreign Extra Stout
13. STOUT E. American Stout
13. STOUT F. Russian Imperial Stout

Lowest at 2 for the following:
1. LIGHT LAGER A. Lite American Lager
1. LIGHT LAGER B. Standard American Lager
1. LIGHT LAGER C. Premium American Lager
2. PILSNER A. German Pilsner (Pils)
15. GERMAN WHEAT AND RYE BEER A. Weizen/Weissbier
16. BELGIAN AND FRENCH ALE A. Witbier
17. SOUR ALE A. Berliner Weisse

Original Gravity – OG, how much fermentable sugar is present:

Highest, 1.130:
9. SCOTTISH AND IRISH ALE – E. Strong Scotch Ale

Lowest, 1.028:
1. LIGHT LAGER A. Lite American Lager
17. SOUR ALE A. Berliner Weisse

Final Gravity – FG, how much sugar is left behind (how sweet the beer is):

Highest, 1.056:
9. SCOTTISH AND IRISH ALE – E. Strong Scotch Ale

Lowest, 1.001:
1. LIGHT LAGER A. Lite American Lager

Extreme brewers, even a few breweries, have successfully pushed far past theses ‘guidelines’. For example, Dogfish Head’s 120 minute IPA pushing 21% alcohol by volume! It would be difficult to calculate IBU’s for a 5 gallon batch of beer that was brewed with several pounds of hops, but at that point who is counting?