Colour adjustment

My 1954 Whitbread Double Brown was bottled today, and needed colour adjusting. I had been putting off bottling for this reason, and just kept forgetting to either pop into a home brew shop while on my work travels, or order some Brupacks brewers caramel online. However, Tesco provided the answer for the princely sum of 85p, in the form of Sarson's Gravy Browning. Er, gravy browning? As in meat? Well, no, not really. Its mainly caramel colourant with a tiny, tiny amount of salt and glucose syrup. This is a home brewers trick of yesteryear, and I can see why. Two teaspoons gave my 19L batch the required colour boost, and before and after tasting showed no difference whatsoever.

The sample tasted really nice; the combination of yeast and fermentation temperature has given it a slight fruityness that balances the bitterness nicely. I'm not sure that is right for the style, but I like it.