Why Is Beer Dark or Golden in Colour? Malt Roast Explained

Beer is dark or golden because of one decision made long before brewing starts: how far the malted barley was roasted. Light roast, golden beer. Heavy roast, dark beer. Same grain either way.

That framing comes from Cocktails INDIA, whose video “Some Golden & Some Beer is Dark in Colour! Why So??” anchors the explanation to bottles Indian drinkers already know: Kingfisher, Kingfisher Ultra and Budweiser at the golden end, Guinness stout at the dark one.

What follows goes past the video. The numbers brewers use, the malts that produce them, and the two things colour will never tell you.

Source video: Cocktails INDIA, “Some Golden & Some Beer is Dark in Colour! Why So??”, published 9 August 2026.

So Why Is Beer Dark or Golden in Colour? Start With the Malt

Beer begins with barley, the grain Cocktails INDIA calls jau for its Indian viewers. That barley is malted, then heated in a kiln. Colour is settled at that step and nowhere else.

The gap between the extremes is enormous. Pilsner malt leaves the kiln at roughly 1.5 to 2 °L, pale enough to read newsprint through the finished lager, while chocolate malt is roasted to about 350 °L and roasted barley to about 500 °L, dark enough to turn a whole batch opaque (Briess malt specifications) [VERIFY].

Nothing exotic gets added to make a stout black. One grain, one kiln, two variables: temperature and time.

Terminology from The Oxford Companion to Beer, “color” entry.

The Toaster and the Coffee Roaster

Cocktails INDIA compares malted barley to bread in a toaster. Short toast, pale gold. Long toast, dark brown heading to black. Brew with the pale grain and you get the lager most drinkers recognise; brew with the burnt grain and you get something like Guinness.

The coffee version lands harder in India, because most of us already buy beans by roast level. A dark South Indian filter blend and a pale light-roast bean came off the same plant. What separates them is minutes under heat.

Barley behaves identically. Which means roast level is a dial rather than a category, and every bottle on the shelf sits somewhere along it.

Original photography; no frames taken from the source video.

Where Beers Sold in India Sit on the Roast Scale

Kingfisher Premium and Kingfisher Ultra both pour crystal clear at around 4.8% and 5% ABV respectively (United Breweries) [VERIFY], and Budweiser sits at 5% ABV in most markets (Budweiser) [VERIFY]. All three are built on lightly kilned base malt.

Guinness Draught is the opposite end: 4.2% ABV, black in the glass, with roasted unmalted barley doing the colour work (Guinness) [VERIFY].

Style guidelines put ranges on this. The BJCP’s 2021 beer style guidelines give international pale lager 2 to 6 SRM and Irish stout 25 to 40 SRM (BJCP). Read the style name on an unfamiliar bottle and you can predict the shade within a few points.

Availability and pricing for all four labels shift with state excise revisions, so check a live retailer listing rather than any figure quoted in an article. This site has not purchased, poured or compared any of them.

Gradient values from BJCP 2021 style ranges; beer placements from the Cocktails INDIA video.

SRM, EBC and Lovibond: Putting a Number on the Glass

Firestone Walker Brewing Company explains why anyone bothers measuring: colour is a production specification, not a matter of taste. The brewery has to hit the same target batch after batch.

Three systems do the work. SRM, the Standard Reference Method, comes from the American Society of Brewing Chemists, which defines it as absorbance at 430 nm through a 1 cm cell, multiplied by 12.7 [VERIFY]. EBC, from the European Brewery Convention, reads the same wavelength and multiplies by 25. Lovibond is the older visual-comparison system, still how maltsters quote their bags.

The conversions are simple arithmetic. EBC runs at roughly 1.97 times SRM, and degrees Lovibond come out near (SRM + 0.76) ÷ 1.3546 [VERIFY]. A 4 SRM lager is about 8 EBC. A 40 SRM stout is about 79.

Two practical notes. That 1 cm path length matters: the same beer looks noticeably darker in a wide tumbler than in a narrow flute, which is why eyeballing colour across different glassware is unreliable. Haze does the same thing in reverse, scattering light so a cloudy wheat beer reads paler than its measured value.

No SRM or EBC figures are published for Kingfisher, Kingfisher Ultra, Budweiser or Guinness by their brewers, and none appear here.

Method definitions from ASBC and EBC Analytica.

What Else Shifts the Shade

Brewer World starts where the video does, with the grain, then adds three mechanisms on top.

Heat in the kettle keeps working. Maillard browning continues through a 60 to 90 minute boil, the same reaction that browns a chapati, and a longer boil darkens the wort measurably.

Time works against the beer. Beers get darker as they age, and oxidation degrades colour stability, which is a live problem in a country where a warehouse can run past 40 °C before a crate ever reaches a shop [VERIFY]. A year-old bottle stored warm will not match a fresh one.

Speciality grains are the deliberate lever. Crystal malt spans roughly 20 to 120 °L (Briess) [VERIFY], and a brewer blends it against pale base malt to land on a target number before a single litre of water is heated. The terminology sits in The Oxford Companion to Beer under “color”.

Colour, Strength and Bitterness Are Three Separate Questions

No, dark does not mean strong. Brewer World states that alcohol content should never be judged from colour, and the market proves it: pale double IPAs routinely clear 8% ABV while Guinness Draught sits at 4.2%.

Bitterness is a third, unrelated axis. It is measured in IBU and comes almost entirely from hops, which add nothing to the shade. BJCP 2021 puts Irish stout at 25 to 45 IBU and American IPA at 40 to 70, so the black beer is the milder one.

Heavier roast does bring roasted, coffee-like character. That is what roasting grain does. Body, sweetness and bitterness stay invisible.

The label carries the ABV. The style name carries the rest.

Quick Reference: Golden Beer Versus Dark Beer

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Kingfisher golden but Guinness black?

Kingfisher is a lager built on lightly kilned malt; Guinness uses roasted barley that has been taken far further under heat. BJCP 2021 ranges put roughly 20 to 35 SRM points between the two style families.

Does dark beer have more alcohol?

No. Brewer World says outright that alcohol content should not be judged from colour. Guinness Draught runs 4.2% ABV while plenty of straw-coloured IPAs pass 8%.

What is SRM in beer?

The Standard Reference Method, an ASBC measurement of absorbance at 430 nm through a 1 cm cell, multiplied by 12.7. Low numbers mean pale gold, high numbers mean black. EBC is the European equivalent at roughly twice the value.

Does a darker beer taste more bitter?

Not reliably. Bitterness comes from hops and is counted in IBU, and BJCP 2021 rates Irish stout below American IPA on that scale despite the colour gap.

Does beer change colour over time?

Yes. Brewer World notes that beers darken with age and that oxidation degrades colour stability, so storage temperature and shelf time both show up in the glass.

One dial, set before the mash, is the whole of why beer is dark or golden in colour. Everything else you want to know, strength and bitterness included, is printed on the label instead.

Related reading: Kingfisher price by state · Guinness India availability guide · Lager ale stout differences · Reading beer ABV labels · Best beers in India · How beer is made · Indian craft beer labels

For readers of legal drinking age, which ranges from 18 to 25 depending on the state, with prohibition in force in Gujarat and Bihar [VERIFY]. Please drink responsibly.

Source video: Cocktails INDIA, “Some Golden & Some Beer is Dark in Colour! Why So??” Technical sources: ASBC, EBC Analytica, BJCP 2021 style guidelines, Firestone Walker, Brewer World, The Oxford Companion to Beer.

Written by [author name], [short bio: beer and spirits writer covering the Indian market]. Last reviewed: 9 August 2026.