Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 5716850A: Monitoring The Colour And Bitterness Of Beer

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Today in 1998, US Patent 5716850 A was issued, an invention of Gurinder Takhar and Mandy King, assigned to Whitbread PLC, for their “Monitoring the Colour And Bitterness of Beer.” Here’s the Abstract:

A method of determining one or both of the colour and bitterness of beer by illuminating the beer with light of a pre-determined wavelength, typically 400±30 nm, to cause iso-α-acids in the beer to fluoresce. The fluorescence is detected over a range of wavelengths, typically 420 to 673 nm, using a fluorescence spectrophotometer. One or both of the colour and bitterness of the beer is determined by comparing an output signal from the fluorescence spectrophotometer to output signals stored for beers of known colour and bitterness.

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The Effect Of Color On Taste

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I’ve seen several different studies examining the effect of the color of food or a beverage on how it tastes. But this is the first one I’ve seen where they’ve looked at the color of the room in which the tasting is held. This study used wine, but it would undoubtedly be the same for beer, or any other drink. It certainly makes sense that your environment would effect the experience of tasting. Or as this short article in Drinks Business puts it, the “environment in which you experience a wine has a ‘profound’ effect on how you will perceive it to taste.” The study, conducted by Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, concluded that “Lighting and music can act as digital seasoning for food and wine.” I”m not quite sure about sound, but perhaps. Anyway, it brings up all sorts of possibilities about how we taste, and where. I’d certainly like to see more of this kind of research.

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Be careful what room you drink in, especially what color it is.