Beer 101: How to read Style Guidelines

In order to help you all better understand the style guidelines we will be publishing, here is a little bit of info on how to read the specifics of the beers.

O.G. - This number is the Original Gravity. This number lets you know how much sugar is present in the wort before fermentation.

F.G. - This number is the Final Gravity. This number tells you how much sugar is present in the beer after fermentation. You take the difference between the amount of sugar before fermentation and the amount of sugar after fermentation, and this tells you how much alcohol was produced during fermentation (During fermentation, sugar is turned into alcohol).

IBUs - This number is the International Bittering Units. This measures the bitterness of your beer. This number is related to the addition of hops during the brewing process. The more hops that are used, the higher your IBUs will be. Ideally, you will balance your malt with the hops, or the beer will be unbalanced and, potentially, undrinkably bitter. This is why most beers with high IBUs will generally be high gravity beers. You need that many hops to balance the massive amounts of malt, and vice versa. Lighter Lagers can be as low as 5 IBUs, and some beers can range up to 100+ IBUs, such as many Imperial India Pale Ales and Barleywines.

SRM - This number is a measure of color. The following is the BJCP scale for calculating SRMs
Straw................2-3
Yellow...............3-4
Gold ..................5-6
Amber.............. 6-9
Deep amber/light copper..................10-14
Copper..................................................14-17
Deep copper/light brown...................17-18
Brown....................................................19-22
Dark Brown..........................................22-30
Very Dark Brown................................30-35
Black......................................................30+
Black, opaque........................................40+

Hope this info helps. Let us know if there are any questions. Cheers, all.