Regardless of who invented it, the first people to make green beer probably made it the same, slightly unintuitive way it’s made today: a mixture of beer and blue food coloring (the blue mixes with the natural yellow of the beer to make green).
— Phil Edwards, writing at Vox
If a warning flag didn’t pop up in your brain after reading the preceding words, then you’re probably not a member of the target audience for my thoughts today, and you might be more comfortable here.
This said, my own warning flag flies in the form of a question: Is yellow really the natural color of beer, or just the most customary shade experienced during modern industrial brewing times?
And: What type of food coloring is needed to turn Guinness green? Or for that matter, Smithwick’s?
Then: Why would anyone do this sort of thing to beer, anyway, even a wretched and indefensible light lager like Michelob Ultra, much less an artisanal product?
Yes, I know; it’s all in good fun, because we love the Irish one day each year. Except that I happen to view it a bit differently, and will now explain to you why. It’s what I do, explain. You’re free to disagree; that’s what dialogue is all about, even if it’s gone a bit out of fashion.
This year on St. Patrick’s Day, I conjured a tweet.
“IMHO, if you’re a local ‘craft’ brewery, and you color your beer green for St. Paddy’s, it is a regrettable thing, and I can’t take you seriously as a ‘craft’ brewery the other 364 days of the year.”
I advanced this crazed point of view after a search for “green beer” revealed a St. Paddy’s tout by a “craft” brewery in Texas. In all honesty, I had absolutely no idea the practice had become so common among small American “craft” brewers that it prompted this devastating (and unrelated) comment:
Craft Brewers 10 Years Ago: “Don’t drink that crappy, fizzy green macro lager today. Try a craft IPA or Red ale!”
Craft Brewers Today: “We put green food coloring in all our beers for St Pat’s. Don’t forget to try our crappy fizzy lager!” pic.twitter.com/5fgHwiBgai
— The Olympic Tavern (@OlympicTavern) March 17, 2023
It also never occurred to me, not even once, that Louisville-area brewers were complicit. I was quickly reminded by a friend about Atrium Brewing’s O’Beer, a “sour…filled with passion fruit, blue raspberry, lemon, and...Read more