Ideas for a "blue" beer...?

[JimRausch]

Haven't tried it myself, but Gel food colouring is amazing stuff - particularly look for one with a name like "Electric" Blue. The ones that start with electric I've foudn will colour almost anything.

Have you tried it in beer yet? The one and only time I tried to add food coloring to beer(red), the coloring sank to the bottom and colored the yeast, but did not color the beer. I added it at bottling time. However, it was liquid food coloring, not gel.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Have you tried it in beer yet? The one and only time I tried to add food coloring to beer(red), the coloring sank to the bottom and colored the yeast, but did not color the beer. I added it at bottling time. However, it was liquid food coloring, not gel.

I've used green food coloring in the keg before and it worked quite well.

EDIT: Actually I think I used blue. It was to dye a beer green for St Patty's.

 

[JimRausch]

Blue is difficult because of the pH of beer. Blueberries at beer pH levels turn reddy purple.

Interesting. I never knew the reason, but I can confirm that my 'Blueberry Moon' (American wheat with blueberries) is a pinkish-purple. And that's with 3 lb. of blueberries in a 2G batch. Using nothing but the best Maine wild blueberries, of course!

 

[kh54s10]

My blueberry beer was dark brown. But it was a stout!

 

[SEndorf]

As mentioned in other threads, making a blue colored beer is a complex project.
I ran across this:
http://www.grubstreet.com/2014/10/abashiri-blue-beer.html

 

[dx250]

This is a blue beer that I am working on for the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. The Ohio fans will have a choice of yellow or blue beer. Anyway, this is my yellow fizzy beer with what works out to about 1/4 oz of Wilton royal blue icing color in the keg and imparts no flavor. Everything else I tried ended in green or purple beer.

 

[Rob2010SS]

This is a blue beer that I am working on for the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. The Ohio fans will have a choice of yellow or blue beer. Anyway, this is my yellow fizzy beer with what works out to about 1/4 oz of Wilton royal blue icing color in the kegand imparts no flavor. Everything else I tried ended in green or purple beer.

Wow! That is an awesome blue! What style beer is that? You say fizzy yellow but it's dark like a stout..

 

[dx250]

Wow! That is an awesome blue! What style beer is that? You say fizzy yellow but it's dark like a stout..

Its this recipe, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/something-like-stella.108648/

This is the same beer and glass just no color.

And yes I over carbed it a little 20 psi.

 

[agrazela]

Blue spirulina-based food color can stay blue even at low pH.

I made a 0.2% by weight solution of EXBERRY "Majestic Blue" in deionized water, then split into two beakers. The solution on the left I buffered to pH ~7 with sodium citrate, on the right I acidified to pH ~3 with citric acid. Both managed to retain a nice baby blue hue.

You'd still need to go with the absolute lightest-color base beer possible (to avoid going green), plus I can't say for sure that it wouldn't get pulled out by falling trub and such, so I'd suggest adding the blue spirulina in the keg or the bottle. But at least the pH won't kill it.

I've heard you can get blue spirulina (powder) on amazon, etc.

 

[MT2sum]

I hope this isn't too late for you ...... Maybe this will give you some ideas!

It's "Blue Violet" but maybe it's blue enough. The Butterfly Pea Flowers are available on Amazon. I'm going to get some seeds for this Spring/Summer and grow my own! If you also look up the seeds, it will show you what the flowers look like up close.

If you have BeerSmith, you can scale the 5 liter batch up to 1, 2, 3, 5 or 10 gallons if you want to.
Also, I think he made a mistake on the temp mashing at 170F doesn't sound right to me, so if you brew this use your best guess 152(66.6C), 155(68.3C), 158 (70C). I believe that 78C for sparge sounds about right (173F) at least it's in the neighborhood :>).