We Tried 5 Ways to Make Green Beer: Here's the One We Liked Best

We tried five different methods of making green beer for St. Patrick's Day. See which ones we liked—and which one we couldn't stand.

Emily VanSchmus

Updated on February 5, 2024

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day means two things: Wearing green so you don't get pinched and sipping on a festive green drink. And since we'll be celebrating the holiday at home this year, we're on a mission to find the best at-home green beer recipe.

There are several green beer variations out there—of course, the easiest method is just to add a few drops of green food coloring to your drink, but we wanted to know if there was a better (and tastier) option. So, we tried five methods by adding different forms of green coloring to five pints of cold beer. Some were excellent, a few were only OK, and one we'll never make again.

Learn the best way to make green beer at home—it's easier than you think!

DIY green beer with various mix-ins — Brie Passano

How to Make Green Beer

The first thing we found is that it's easiest to start with a light beer. Although it's certainly possible to make green Guinness, you'll need a lot less dye if you use a lighter beer. We used a light beer for each of our test green beers, so we recommend using the same if you're after similar results. See what we added to each beer and start making your at-home St. Patty's Day plans now!

01 of 05

Green Food Coloring

pouring beer into glass with food coloring — BRIE PASSANO

The most obvious choice for making green beer is with food coloring, which is certainly easy! Because we started with light beer, we only needed a few drops per glass. The darker the beer, the more food dye you'll need—potentially risking turning your teeth green as you drink. We didn't add much dye, so this batch tasted like a regular beer.

Buy It: Green Food Color ($4, Target)

02 of 05

Rock Candy

This version of green beer was definitely our favorite. We poured the beer into the glass and then stirred it with a green rock candy stick; it started turning green as fast as the rock candy dissolved. Rock candy is dyed sugar, so it didn't change the flavor of our beer at all.

Buy It: Green Rock Candy ($10 for a 12-pack, Oriental Trading Co.)

03 of 05

Matcha Green Tea

This green beer recipe wasn't the best thing we've ever tasted, but it wasn't horrible either. We added matcha green tea powder to the beer. There was a definite health food taste, but we didn't spit it out. This one was fun to try, but we won't be making it again anytime soon.

Buy It: Matcha Green Tea Powder Mix ($10, Target)

04 of 05

Sour Apple Skittles

using skittles to make green beer — BRIE PASSANO

We were surprised by how well this green beer recipe worked. We added about 15 green Skittles to the bottom of our glass and started pouring. The beer turned green immediately! The beer quickly dissolves the green candy coating of the Skittles and then starts to absorb some of the sour apple flavor, which gives the beer a cider-like taste that is actually pretty enjoyable. This was the brightest green of all the beers, so you probably only need three to five Skittles to get a light green effect.

Finding an all-green bag of Skittles might be possible, but since we didn't need many, we just fished out the green ones from a rainbow package and ate the rest as a snack.

Buy It: Skittles Sharing Size ($4, Walmart)

05 of 05

Wheatgrass

We can't say we had high hopes for this green beer, and we were right. We added about a teaspoon of wheatgrass powder to the bottom of the glass and then poured in the beer. For some reason, the mixture of the wheatgrass powder and the beer created so much foam that it was hard even to mix the powder into the beer. And once we scooped out enough foam to try the drink, it tasted bitter and chalky. We won't be making this green beer again.