St. Patty's

Go Green With Food Coloring: How to Celebrate St. Patty’s Like a Semi-Responsible Adult

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner. As they say, it’s the one day when everyone is Irish. St. Patty’s is the perfect holiday to wear your favorite green-hued outfit and a silly, culturally insensitive orange wig and beard combo while you drink all the Irish whiskey and green beer you can handle.

Besides Guinness, there are few beverages more synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day than green beer. But, the problem with most green beer is that the food coloring used in it is made with things like carotenoids, chlorophyll, anthocyanin, and propylene glycol. All in all, we aren’t super comfortable ingesting some of the ingredients in that classic green food coloring. That’s why we were so happy to learn (from the folks at Wide Open Eats) that you can make an all-natural green food coloring using wheatgrass juice or powder.

It’s a fairly simple recipe. All you need to do is add 1 tablespoon to the bottom of your glass and then pour your favorite beer over it (although you might want to stick to lagers, pilsners, and IPAs. Stouts and porters might not work out so well). The simple act of pouring the beer should mix it all together, leaving you with a classic-looking green beer. If it isn’t green enough for you, add more wheatgrass juice.

Just be aware that, unlike food coloring, wheatgrass juice does have a flavor. It’s a subtle vegetal, sweet flavor. Add more beer if you aren’t keen on the flavor. Or, just grow up and drink your beer as it was supposed to be enjoyed.

Cover Photo: vadimguzhva (Getty Images)

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