Home > International Bitterness Units scale

A light American lager might be as low as 5 on the IBU scale. At the other extreme, a barley wine can range up to 100. Other examples:

• Belgian Lambics: 11-23
• Blonde ale: 15-30
• Kölsch: 18-25
• Märzen/Oktoberfest: 18-25
• Ordinary English bitter: 20-35
• Porter: 20-40
• Brown ale: 15-25, with North American styles higher, 25-45
• BohemiaBohemia Cechy in Czech, Bohmen in German) is an historical region in central Europe, occupying the western and middle thirds of the Czech Republic. With an area of 52,750 sq. 25 million of the country's 10. 3 million inabitants, Bohemia is bounded by Germn-style PilsenerPilsener or pilsner (optional capitalization) is a type of lager beer. It was developed in the city of Pilsen, Czech Republic. It is generally distinguished from other lagers by a more prominent hop character, particularly from noble hops. Up to the 1840s: 30-45
• India Pale Ale: 40 or higher
• An Irish stoutStout is a dark beer made using roasted malts and is a variant of porter beer. Porter was first recorded as being made and sold in London in the 1730s. It became very popular across Britain and Ireland. The first use of the word Stout was the Stout-Porter like GuinnessArthur Guinness Son & Co. founded 1756, produces a dark stout (a type of beer, specifically porter), known widely as Guinness brewed at St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland since 1759. It is also brewed under licence internationally the resulting beer is, fr: 45-60
• Stone Ruination IPA: 100+

One formula craft brewers use to calculate IBU is

hop weight × AA% × utilization × volume × 1.34

where

• hop weight refers to the weight of the hops used in ounceThis article is about the unit of measure. Ounce is also another name for the snow leopard. The ounce is the name for a number of different units of mass oz , and, confusingly, fluid volume fl oz . See Imperial system of units and U. customary units for ms.
• AA% refers to the alpha acid percentage, which is influenced by many factors, including method of cultivation, species, and time of year. Hops are often sold labeled with this percentage.
• utilization is the percentage of Alpha acid that is actually used during the boiling process.
• volume means the volume of the wortWort (pronounced wert is the liquid extracted from mashing malted barley in a brewing process. It is known firstly as sweet wort and then hopped wort after hops have been added at the boiling process. Wort contains sugars that will be fermented by yeast a in gallonThe gallon is a unit of volume used for measuring liquids. In the US a gallon is 3. 78541 litres: see U. customary units An Imperial gallon is 4. 54609 litres: see Imperial unit. At one time, the volume of a gallon depended on what you were measuring, ands.
• the constant (1.34) adjusts the measurement to account for the use of U.S. customary units.