Coloring your beer blue?

[drawdy10]

Is it possible to make a blue beer? I assume that it is because I saw this japanese blue beer but everything I read online says that blue food coloring makes green beer. So how do you make blue beer?

 

[LandoLincoln]

Is it possible to make a blue beer? I assume that it is because I saw this japanese blue beer but everything I read online says that blue food coloring makes green beer. So how do you make blue beer?

You'd have to come up with a pretty colorless beer, and then tint it blue.

Which means that the beer would probably taste like water. Blue water.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Unfortunately that is true. Can not color it blue. Nothing you can do.

What that is is probably some sugar-water turned alcohol and then colored blue. Not actually beer, as it probably has absolutely no grain.

And yes, blue dye plus yellow beer makes for green liquid.

 

[HomebrewMTB]

Real beer isn't blue.

 

[DrDarwin]

I'm sure this isn't going to help you all that much since this will obviously have flavor effects, but blueberry beer made with tons of blueberries can be anywhere from just blue to "HOLY SH*T THAT'S BLUE," blue.

 

[sockozz]

A light colored beer then add blueberrys into the secondary?

edit: Darwin beat me to it! Guess I need to read better..

 

[DubbelDach]

Blueberries turn beer purple.

 

[cholmes]

St. Pattys day all the bar server green beer it's just adding a few drops of food coloring. I'm no sure what's in it but if you want blue beer do it when you bottle or keg and it should work.

 

[JLem]

Blueberries turn beer purple.

+1 purple - at best. More pinkish than purple usually.

 

[LVBen]

Yep. One of the guys in our home brew club made a Romulan Ale. It was blue. He said he had to use a LOT of blue food coloring, so he ended up with a beer that was a darker blue than what he wanted.

 

[LandoLincoln]

St. Pattys day all the bar server green beer it's just adding a few drops of food coloring. I'm no sure what's in it but if you want blue beer do it when you bottle or keg and it should work.

Blue plus yellow makes green.

Green plus yellow makes yellowish green.

Nothing plus yellow makes blue, except for huge quantities of blue to mask the yellow completely.

 

[jamesjensen1068]

Maybe try blue jello????

 

[944play]

They obviously have to strip out everything beer-colored, which AFAIK is done by filtering the snot out of it, before adding back flavors, thickeners, and their cyanobacteria-derived pigment. It's more malternative than beer, to what I understand.

 

[runningweird]

i am betting anything you added to even a pale ale or blonde would make your beer turn green. Besides, food dyes make people really sick some times.

 

[BeerChef17]

try buying powder food coloring...I use it in the pastry shop all the time to dye sugar. The smallest amount has a ton of power. I am guessing a tablespoon would be plenty (if not even too much) to get a dark blue color in your beer. http://www.amazon.com/Royal-Blue-Powder-Food-Color/dp/B0008D6U1W/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1318362706&sr=8-6

 

[StokedBrew]

No thanks to blue beer. Are we here to improve our skills, or make gimmicks? Beers should, IMHO, be yellow, black, brown or red. Or some variant there in. Green beer is for BMC on St. Patricks Day. Blue beer is for malt beverages. Anything else is not really beer.

 

[DrDarwin]

+1 purple - at best. More pinkish than purple usually.

Heh. I guess it could be more of a purple. I used so much blueberry that it was a deep deep hue. I guess my memory could be serving me wrong.

I might have a bit left in a keg somewhere... I'll try to post pictures when I get home.

 

[bob3000]

St. Pattys day all the bar server green beer it's just adding a few drops of food coloring. I'm no sure what's in it but if you want blue beer do it when you bottle or keg and it should work.

would that be St Paddy's? or is there a saint of ground meat product?

 

[drawdy10]

try buying powder food coloring...I use it in the pastry shop all the time to dye sugar. The smallest amount has a ton of power. I am guessing a tablespoon would be plenty (if not even too much) to get a dark blue color in your beer. http://www.amazon.com/Royal-Blue-Powder-Food-Color/dp/B0008D6U1W/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1318362706&sr=8-6

Yes, thank you so much finally a useful comment, I want to make a blue beer for homecoming for a house party at my new place with my friends the school colors are blue and yellow, well obviously every beer is yellow so that would be nothing special so i want to make a blue beer just like st. pattys day green beer. We are just going to do beer pong and what not with it, drink a butt load of it, so flavor is not an issue, just want to make a blue beer. I will see what I can figure out by testing the dark blue powder with some light lager.

 

[drawdy10]

Yep. One of the guys in our home brew club made a Romulan Ale. It was blue. He said he had to use a LOT of blue food coloring, so he ended up with a beer that was a darker blue than what he wanted.

LVBen, any idea what the recipe or technique was used to make the romulan ale?

 

[LVBen]

LVBen, any idea what the recipe or technique was used to make the romulan ale?

He said it was an imperial cream ale. Not sure exactly how that relates to the Romulan Ale that appears in any Star Trek literature or shows... maybe he just used that as a base because it was easier to add the blue coloring and maybe because Romulan Ale is supposed to be high in abv?

 

[DrDarwin]

Yeah, so blueberries definitely impart more of a purple hue. My memory is apparently worthless...

 

[beerlife]

Apologies for necro posting and reviving a 9 year old thread, but I thought it might be good to mention that Abashiri Brewery Japan makes a blue beer. it is made from blue seaweed and some other funky stuff like water from icebergs....