Green Beer? The history of an American St. Patricks Day tradition.

Green Beer is arguably the most iconic tradition of American celebrations of St. Patrick's Day across the country. Like most things we invent to celebrate cultural holidays in the States, Green Beer is not an Irish invention. So why do we dye our beer green year after year on March 17th and when did we decide this was a good idea? Well, we don’t have to look back that far. 

Wash Blue packets - perfect for whitening clothes and apparently, in 1914, for dyeing beer green

Our story starts with a gent named Dr. Thomas Hayes Curtin who was a coroner and proprietor of a Bronx social club (history is weird, right?!). On St. Patrick’s Day 1914, it seems as if Dr. Curtin went all out with everything green at the social club, including the beer. Also, it appears as if the good doctor used a compound called “wash blue”, a garment whitener to transform mundane beer to emerald green (take that tide pod challenge). Maybe the good doctor was trying to increase the clientele for his daytime profession. 

Between 1914 and the 1950s, the practice of dyeing beer green grew and was in widespread use in the middle of the twentieth century, albeit using proper food coloring in place of the toxic compound it first started as. This distinctly American expression of St. Patrick’s Day didn’t even make it to the Emerald Isle until 1985 to the most likely confusion of the Irish. It is now estimated that we chug 4.2 billion pints of green beer on St. Patrick’s Day.

Here at Windermere Brewing Company we aren’t so keen on altering a perfectly good pint of peer with novelty. However, if you feel so inclined to dye your own beer, just remember your basic colors and use a drop or two of blue food coloring added to a yellow beer, and bam you’ve got yourself some green beer.