is the most common of food colorings, making up 90% of all substances added to food and drink to effect a color change. While dark color in most beers is the result of roasted malts in the mash, the color of beer may also be adjusted upwards by the use of a number of compounds. Caramel color (also called “couleur” or “colouring sugar,” EU positive list E-number 150) is produced by boiling sugar and adding ammonia as a catalyst, causing the formation of compounds giving the product an extremely high color (up to more than 50,000 EBC units).

The reason for using caramel color in beer is two-fold; it is used in small amounts as a final correction of the color of a wide range of beers and sometimes as part of the actual recipe construction of a beer. As coloring agents are—at normally used concentrations—virtually free of aroma and flavor, they can be used for producing dark beers with much less roasted aroma and flavor than would result for using dark malts to achieve the same color. It also allows a brewery to create more than one “product” out of a single beer. Especially in mass-market brewing, this allows a very mildly flavored beer to achieve a bolder appearance. Product names include the American “Porterine,” so-called for its supposed ability to turn ordinary golden lager into “porter” and the German Sinamar, which is formulated to meet the requirements of the Reinheitsgebot. While Belgian dark candi sugar also gives color, it is not the same as the colorants mentioned here; dark candi sugar is a major flavoring component as well and can also be a major fraction of fermentable sugar.

Where caramel color is used, it is normally added to finished, filtered beer as the part of a final adjustment before packaging.