How can I get a REALLY RED ale?

Hey guys, i'm trying to make a light beer with some serious red color to it and was just wondering if any of you have had experience with that kind of thing. I was thinking of making it as pale as possible and then using some fruit extract (cherry?) or maybe just some red tea to help make the color more noticeable. If you guys have any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated! Cheers!

Dan

red food coloring? Assuming you just want color and not taste deltas...

tyrone said:

red food coloring? Assuming you just want color and not taste deltas...

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+1

Pale Chocolate Malt could help.

Magic hat does it with beet juice in their Wacko beer



red enough for you?

So.. You want to make it look like you are drinking blood?

+1 for the food coloring. Lots of it.

I've been wanting to try black or purple rice and seeing how that affects color.

Wow, i haven't actually seen that Magic Hat beer before. That's interesting that they use beet juice. I just want to see how to exaggerate the redness of a red ale with some natural techniques. I'll try some of the things suggested and put up some pictures in the future.

Do a search, there was a thread with a good deal of discussion just a couple weeks ago

Cambone said:

Magic hat does it with beet juice in their Wacko beer

red enough for you?

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Wacko was ok... not a big fan of MH... beets were in for color only. Color was Interesting.

Hibiscus flowers will do the trick. Plus they're pretty tasty.

BeerLogic said:

Hibiscus flowers will do the trick. Plus they're pretty tasty.

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Very Interested in this! I'm a Hawaiian Shirt guy...

Just how much Hibiscus flowers will do the trick to fully color and get a taste? Can the flowers be ordered online or do they need to be used fresh? I may be able to grow some here in SC. Specific variety needed?

You can order them online. If you search for hibiscus tea you'll be directed to sites that sell the dried flowers by themselves along with herbal tea blends containing them. You need less than 1/8 oz. for a cup of the tea, so if you were brewing this as a full strength tea, I'd say half a pound for 5 gallons would be way more than enough.

The idea came from Jolly Pumpkin - they do a red saison called Baudelaire brewed with rose hips and hibiscus. They're usually pretty secretive about their recipes, but you could try to find out from them how much they use.

I'm searching for the thread, but there's a gentleman on here who makes a hibiscus saison. He uses 2 oz. in the boil and 2 oz. dry hop if I believe. Supposedly a great deep red color.

Hibiscus sounds interesting.

but beet juice will definitely work too. That's how Red Velvet cake used to be colored as well, traditional red velvet anyway, before it came to mean the rich chocolatey awesomeness it is now.

xjmox14x said:

I'm searching for the thread, but there's a gentleman on here who makes a hibiscus saison. He uses 2 oz. in the boil and 2 oz. dry hop if I believe. Supposedly a great deep red color.

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I do a hibiscus wit. I use 4 oz at 5 min in the boil and the beer turns a beautiful deep red/purple. It definitely has a flavor however, not just a color addition.

T