I'm seeking to make a clear or cloudy white beer for "Bantha Milk" theme. Chhaang or Zima perhaps?

[lonlonmilklover]

For a Star Wars party I'm going to in a few months, I'm planning to bring a batch of beer...

Specifically, Bantha Milk - You know, the Blue Milk served on Tatooine. (Yes, I'm sure 90% of you probably know, I don't mean to insult you)

To realistically accomplish this, I have 4 possibilities I've researched that I'd like to throw out there for discussion.

Option 1: Brew a very very colorless beer, add texture and cloud it up with lactose sugar and flaked oats, and add blue food coloring. In essence, make a Zima clone and haze it up.

Option 2: Brew Chhaang, and add blue food coloring. I am having a hard time getting clarity of details regarding what yeast to use, as many online sources have bad reviews citing the yeast balls were infected (not the good kind) upon receipt, with a mildew smell when brewing, thus my third choice:

Option 3: Activate plain extra sticky white short grain cooked rice with koji to convert starch to sugar, or locate a colorless "malted rice" product, then ferment with beer yeast traditionally in carboy for a (hopefully) clear product to again, cloud up and drop in blue food coloring.

Option 4: Brew using only malted oats and/or other 1 or 2 SRM grains, and find a way to filter out the color after primary. I'm told standard Brita filters do a halfway decent job, but has anybody tried this? The only video I've found at all online is a fella pouring a few oz. of a can of PBR through a Brita pitcher, and the quality of the video isn't great enough to really tell how effective it is.

I've seen a few breweries sell a "bantha milk" beer, but it's usually more of a green color since malt is a pale yellow, and the blue food coloring as expected - green it up.

There is ONE Japanese brewery, Abashiri, that shows a perfectly sky blue colored beer product: Okhotsk Blue, and the reviews as one might suspect indicate a very mild beer, leading me to believe they've found a way to either filter out any color from the beer, or find a near colorless fermentable sugar, and add extract for flavor?

Any suggestions, or should I give up this pursuit to homebrew bantha milk?

 

[bornandraisedlv]

Maybe a pulque? This one looks similar to what your looking for.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/pulque-mexico

 

[MaxStout]

The blue food coloring is going to make a greenish beer, even if you brew the lowest SRM malt.

Does it have to be beer? Why not buy some clear juice at the store (i.e., white grape), make cider, then add the blue food coloring?

 

[lonlonmilklover]

It's for a local Star Wars themed homebrew fest, so it simply has to be something fermented. (No wines or distilled products allowed).

Cider, however - that could work! Is there a quality clear juice I might use? I have indeed used cheap storebought apple juice recently to make hard cider and it tasted terrible - simply very bland and cheap. Maybe I can hit up an upscale health food store for some fancier / more reputable white/clear juices?

That does sound an easy route! Find me a clear juice, ferment it to cider, then cloud it up and dye it blue.

Would using flaked oats add a colorless haze to a cider? Or is there an even easier/better method to avoid unwanted flavors?

 

[Wayne1]

Try a Blue Moon Clone https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/blue-moon-clone.65328/
otherwise knows as an American White Ale. Leave off the orange peel and coriander. Use Blueberries post fermentation. That should give you hazy, cloudy, milky and blue.
Good luck.
Wayne