Ideas for Green St. Patty's Day beer

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tmurph01

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Hey all. I am planning on brewing a beer for St. Patrick's Day that I will add green food coloring too in order to give me "green" beer.

My question is, does anyone have any suggestions for which type of beer works best for this or any kit recommendations? I am not set-up for all grain, so it would have to be an extract or partial mash kit.


Cheers!
 
I'm sure many others' first thought will be the same as mine - don't do it/why bother. That said, if you do decide to forge ahead I'd do something light in color and alcohol like an American Pale Ale.
 
maybe one of the simple recipes like centennial blonde, or ed worts haus pale.
either of those should take to color fairly well..
 
If you want a green beer you should probably buy a green Bud Light, IMO. But, if you're looking for something more authentic, you could brew an Irish Red or a Stout.
 
Awww......Revvy is being the SPD grinch! :) No food coloring in his beer. I would think a light beer like BM's Centennial would be good. Dying it in the keg might be neat....
 
The "green beer" is made with blue food coloring into yellow beer. Yellow+blue=green. So make a light yellow colored beer.

I personally like to drink Irish reds/stouts and whiskey that time of year and laugh at the amateurs, in my area, walking about with green beer + teeth with some sort of BMC green beads on...

FYI the dye is a #@&!* to clean out of your equipment...
 
What is wrong with adding a bit of coloring to the beer? It's just a fun and novel way to celebrate the holiday.

Wait, what's SPD about again?? I can only remember the drinking and everything being green.
 
Haven't some breweries done batches of "green beer' that is actually colored green naturally? Like from the hops or something like that?
 
Wait, what's SPD about again??

We are celebrating that St. Pat drove all the snakes from Ireland with a drum...

For me it is heading into my favy Irish pub (That normally has Jameson girls), drinking and singing Irish tunes, while drinking Irish beers and whiskey.
 
We are celebrating that St. Pat drove all the snakes from Ireland with a drum...

For me it is heading into my favy Irish pub (That normally has Jameson girls), drinking and singing Irish tunes, while drinking Irish beers and whiskey.

So we in American celebrate a remote regional event from long, long ago that has ZERO bearing on us as a society?

It "seems" to me as if it's really only an excuse to wear green, talk in a funny accent, and drink too much. :D
 
So we in American celebrate a remote regional event from long, long ago that has ZERO bearing on us as a society?

It "seems" to me as if it's really only an excuse to wear green, talk in a funny accent, and drink too much. :D

Sounds like you need a beer! :D

Friend of mine added dye to a homebrew and bottled it... Did not turn out well. Got super carbonated, which makes me think it got infected, maybe. And it just tasted very medicinal. And he's a very good brewer with no other infections.

And blue dye + yellow beer won't work. You'll get blue beer. Use green dye if that's your thing. In college we got a blue keg and a red keg (Busch Light in school colors) for Homecoming once... The blue took hold very well.
 
I'm actually kind of craving an IPA right now... Weird.

I was thinking about doing this, but I determined that I have too much to do to worry about brewing up a green beer. I could:

a) add a touch of coloring to a bottle and pour some IPA into it from the keg

or

b) Buy am Amber Ale 6er and remove labels and cap, add coloring, and recap. Looks like homemade! Add St. Patricks Day label of your choosing.

The second one is more attractive since the IPA seems to have a foaming issue right now.
 
Thanks for the input guys, and for the record,.. this is not for me. A bunch of my friends and family have been on me to do this for their enjoyment. I am not big on the green beer trend. I would much rather enjoy a good Killian's or Murphy's!


Cheers!
 
On the other hand, you could just serve up a bunch of beer that has only been sitting on the primary for 1 week. That would also be some pretty "green" beer. Yeah!
 
I was thinking about doing a APA and adding a drop of green coloring to the last gallon or two while bottling.
 
The "green beer" is made with blue food coloring into yellow beer. Yellow+blue=green. So make a light yellow colored beer.

..

Not true. If you use blue it will turn a kind of muddy brownish color. You are thinking of additivve color theory, which has to do with lights. Dying beer would fall into subtractive theory.
 
Thanks for the input guys, and for the record,.. this is not for me. A bunch of my friends and family have been on me to do this for their enjoyment. I am not big on the green beer trend. I would much rather enjoy a good Killian's or Murphy's!


Cheers!


Don't drink Coors for Saint Patrick's Day...

and don't drink green beer either.

Beer can already be a mess if you're tying a few on, adding food coloring to the event won't help any.

I am planning an Irish Whiskey Porter for Saint Patrick's Day, a pound of honey added to the recipe and a cup or two of Irish whiskey to taste.
 
Not true. If you use blue it will turn a kind of muddy brownish color. You are thinking of additivve color theory, which has to do with lights. Dying beer would fall into subtractive theory.

I made a blueberry beer for my SWMBO using flavor extract. The base beer was BM's Centennial Blonde. A very light colored beer. The extract was clear and she wanted the beer to have a blue tint. So I added some blue food coloring. It definitely turned the beer green.
 
tmurph, I'm with Homercidal on this one. Just add the dye prior to filling the glass. Less hassle for you and your guests can vary the hue of their brew. Some of those dye packs (unlike the bank dye packs) come with a few different colors. Your guests might starting turning your brew all sorts of different colors.
 
Not true. If you use blue it will turn a kind of muddy brownish color. You are thinking of additivve color theory, which has to do with lights. Dying beer would fall into subtractive theory.

Dying beer is definitely subtractive color theory but you're inverting what additive and subtractive mean.
 
DFH tried a green beer once that was actually brewed with Spirilina Algae. The taste was apparently somewhere between, normal and pond scum.
 
Ah, McStout!

I think it woudl be hard to extract the color without extracting the vegetable flavors as well. In Middle School we extracted the color from leaves by dipping in hot alcohol. I think... It was "a while" ago.

IIRC we placed alcohol in a double boiler and dipped the leaves in and it stripped the protective coating off the leaves and extracted the color. Of course you are getting a bunch of other things as well.
 
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