Spectrophotometric Analysis of Beer and Wort

A representative sampling of beers and laboratory wortsweremeasured spectrophotometrically. The applicability of the Bouguer-Lambert-Beer law to beers and worts without visible turbidity, the independence of cell position for measurement of bright beers, the adequacy of the SRM/EBC color indices to accurately characterize the color of beer and wort, the verity of Linner’s observation of linear with wavelength log Absorbance spectra, and the dimensionality of beer spectra are examined. It was concluded that SRM/EBC color does not accurately characterize the color of beer, that the Bouguer-Lambert-Beer law does apply to beers free from visible turbidity, that the cell position does not materially affect the measurement of non-turbid beers (but does so for turbid beers), and that Linner’s observation also applies reasonably (but not perfectly) well to beers and worts. It is tentatively concluded that beer spectra are two-dimensional in log Absorbance space.