Rogue Voodoo

[aleguy]

Well it looks like Rogue MAY have beaten me to the punch with their Voodoo. I thought I was going to be the first to brew American Pink Ale!
I don't know all the details about the beer, but it IS Pepto Bismol pink! I'm hoping they resorted to something besides malt to get the color.

[yeastmeister]

Nope, its normal colored. Only the bottle is pink.

[aleguy]

Good! Then I still have a chance to be first!

[yeastmeister]

Nope, you won't.

Ok, lets try and make this clear one more time.

You, they, anyone, will never make a pink beer.

Basic color theory. You got additive color theory, or subtractive color theory, since beer isn't producing its own light, you use subtractive color theory.

Beer is basically yellow. Sometimes pale yellow, sometimes real deep yellow. Doesn't matter, there is no color that can match with yellow to make pink.

To get a pink beer, you would need pigments, and not dyes. To overpower the yellow base, you would need so much white pigment and then a touch of red, that you would literally wind up with something the consistency of Pepto. And you would need to shake it periodically, cause the pigment would fall out of solution.

You want green or orange beer, thats easy as well. But pink won't work.

[aleguy]

I'm not looking for hot pink or Pepto pink. I know that it can be done. I'll find it. There are several ways to whiten beer up. Some more permanent than others. There are also malts that produce a very definitely red beer.not ALL malts produce yellow as the base color. The natural pigments in the malt that color beer vary by variety and can be accentuated in the malting process.
Long story short, you are focused on whitening, which is not really the issue. Red malts are not as common as yellow/brown ones. That is the crux of the problem as far as I'm concerned. I need a base malt that is basically red. And those are the rarest of all. Plenty of red specialty malts.

[justin.granger78]

I kegged my beet beer last night and got a really nice red color and it surprisingly smelled like oranges. It must have been the american hops. Actually tasted pretty good. Its pretty close to the color of a zinfandel but not quite pink. the krausian was pink though so it will have a pink head once carbonated.

[yeastmeister]

While I am all for proving physics wrong, I don't see a way out of this one. Please feel free to prove me wrong, but as for now, color theory indicates that you cannot make one.

Don't pass on misinformation until you can actually prove you can make one by producing it for us to see. When I prove something wrong, I don't talk about it till I can invite you over and let you see and touch it. Anything else is misleading to folks who read that you can make one.

While I am aware that some adjuncts make a liquid that isn't yellow, I have yet to find a beer that I want to drink that didn't start out with barley, wheat, or rye of some sort, and I think all of those are shades of yellow. The reds I believe you are seeing in beers are actually more deep browns or oranges.

[justin.granger78]

Proof!

[yeastmeister]

Unfortunately, your going to need to shake it. I know what you used. And its only red because of the solids that are in solution. As it sits, its going to fall out. If its kegged, then every glass you pour will leave less and less color. Yours falls into the category of pigments.

Good try at proof however. Lets see how it looks in a few weeks after some has been drunk from the keg.

[aleguy]

I honestly don't care what collor the beer actually is. As long as it LOOKS pink in the glass. If it's really a shade of brown that just looks pink to the human eye, I'm good with that.