Dark beers...how does THAT happen?!?

*Originally published December 2025*

The days gets darker, and so do the beers… but how does that work, exactly?

Welcome to our first beer article, bringing

you a little bit more info about the beverage you know & love! This month, we’re looking a little more in-depth about darker beers and how they get that way.

In the simplest terms possible, beer starts out as "Grain Tea". To begin the brewing process, sprouted grain is soaked in hot water to remove the sugars that plants would typically use to grow. Most beers use barley; but wheat, corn, rye, and rice (among others) can all be used too. Regardless of which grain gets used, the resulting beer is usually pretty light in color. Most Pilsners, Blonde Ales, and Weiss biers are measured around 2 - 4 degrees Lovibond.

"Lovibond," you may ask, "What’s that?"

Rather than just saying a beer is “kinda dark” or “pretty light,” brewers needed a more scientific method of measuring color. Joseph Williams Lovibond was a 19th century British brewer that developed the first color measurement system for beer, which he (of course) named after himself.

In 1950 the American Society of Brewing Chemists adopted the Standard Reference Method (SRM), which is usually comparable to Lovibond but a little more modern. Either way, the higher the number the darker the beer. Darker beers like porters and stouts measure around 30 to 40+ degrees Lovibond or SRM.

Well, now we know how to measure them. But how do they get that way?

Part of the process for preparing barley, or other grains, for brewing involves letting them start to sprout and allowing the starches to convert into sugars (this is known as germination). The grains are then heated and dried to stop the sprouting process, leaving the grain with plenty of sugar for alcohol production. They only need a light heating temperature of about 100 degrees to dry out the barley, turning it into “sprouted barley” or “malted barley” or commonly called "malt."

But what happens if you turn up the heat?

Roasting the barley at a higher temperature causes it to brown, just like the crust on a loaf of bread. You can roast grain for longer and longer, allowing it to get darker and darker. If you then use the darker barley to brew a beer, you end up with a darker beer. It’s just that simple!

So why do dark beers often have so much more alcohol in them?

It’s tradition as much as anything. Take Schooner Black Lager, for example. Even with a conservative 5% ABV, it’s a very dark brew, coming in around 31 SRM (very close to a certain famous Irish Stout). Those darker, roasted malts also bring coffee and chocolate flavors, which pair well with a little bit sweeter, heavier, more alcohol-laden brews. Dark beers don’t always have to mean heavy beers though! How much alcohol a beer ends up with has a lot more to do with how much grain is added rather than how dark the grain is...but that will be the subject of another Beer Knowledge 101 class.

Until then, cheers!