BEER SCIENCE

Hope you're not still bloated from yesterday's meal.  Today, I'll look at beer.  It is the oldest of alcoholic beverages and the third most consumed beverage in the world behind water and tea.

Here we have the measurements for identifying and judging beer.  The first thing we notice is the color.  Brewers use a scale developed by a dude named Lovibond.  His scale for any liquid runs from white to black - for beer that is from light yellow to deep brown almost black - with scores that range from 1 to 50.  The lightest of beers, like a pale lager, would measure about a 2 or 4 on his scale.  The American Pale Ale and IPAs look about like a 6.  Our brown ale and bock beers are a 20, Irish Stout is a 24, and Imperial Stout is at the head of the list at 40 or greater (very black).

The second measurement for labeling beer is the strength.  In this case, the strength is the alcohol content measured as a percent of the total volume (ABV).  All beers run between 3 and 13% alcohol by volume (more than that and it's no longer a beer).  Here are some representative levels of alcohol contained in our beer:  Bud Light, Coors Lite and Miller Lite are all 4.2%;  Budweiser, Coors and Miller Genuine Draft are all 5.0%;  Corona Light is 4.5%; Sam Adams Boston Lager 4.8%; Yuengling Premium 4.4%; Guinness Foreign Extra Stout 7.5%.  Most companies make labels of various strengths.

There are some density measurements that brewers take into consideration but they are too much minutia for us.  The last big thing is bitterness.  For this, the brewmaster has another scale - the
International Bitterness Unit (IBU).  The IBU scale runs from 0 to 120.  Here's what you have to know:  the American Lagers run from 8-26 on the bitterness scale; Pilsners run from 24-44; Pale Ales from 30-50; Stout 30-90; India Pale Ale (IPA) from 40-120.

Okay, some of you may be worrying about another aspect of beer.  The calories in a bottle of beer is related to the ABV.  Here we go per bottle:  Bud Light has 110, Coors Lite 102 and Miller Lite 96 calories.  If you want some taste:  Budweiser has 145, Miller High Life 141, Yuengling Lager 140.  Note that Michelob Ultra is the same as Miller Lite.   Guinness Foreign Extra Stout has 164.

Don't worry about the calories - never drink and drive!