Green beer in Milwaukee: How food coloring helps sell a whole lot of light beer

Jordyn Noennig, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
·4 min read

In the weeks leading up to St. Patrick's Day, the team at Beer Capitol Distributing gets ready to supply hundreds of customers in the greater Milwaukee area with far more beer than they get on an average weekend.

Beer Capitol, in Sussex, distributes kegs from 50-plus breweries. Most beers will sell higher on the big bar holiday, but thanks to a little green food coloring, light beer sells about double.

"We use green food dye, and add it to half barrels or quarter barrels of light beer," said David Neville, CEO & president of Beer Capitol Distributing. "It's wildly popular, not just on St. Patrick's Day, but weekends before with the parades downtown and on Blue Mound and the Shamrock Shuffle. Just everybody wants green beer. It's amazing."

Beer Capitol Distributing is a MolsonCoors distributor. Neville said its most ordered green beer is Miller Lite, Coors Light and Miller High Life, in that order.

"You can't add it to darker beers, or even to amber beers because it just won't be green," Neville said. "Miller, Coors or High Life are the way to go."

MolsonCoors does not supply any green beer; it is all made at the distributor level.

Beer Capitol Distributing does this with a device it engineered to shoot green food coloring through the top and into the keg using CO2. It adds one ounce of green dye per quarter barrel of beer.

They made the device about 15 years ago, but green beer has been around much longer than that. Neville has been in the industry for 43 years, and kegs of green beer for St. Patrick's Day predated his career, he said.

More:Shamrock Shuffle 2023, parades, green beer: Here's how to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Milwaukee

More:What to know about the 2023 Milwaukee St. Patrick's Day Parade

Green beer makes sales soar

Beer Capitol Distributing declined to give exact numbers, but Neville said he had orders for green beer from hundreds of bars, and it is about double the amount that its non-green counterpart would sell on an average weekend.

Local bars have numbers that say the same.

Kelly's Bleachers, 5218 W. Blue Mound Road, is an Irish bar on the route of the Blue Mound parade. According to owner Anthony Luchini, Kelly's Bleachers sells about seven to 12 half barrels of green beer between parade day, which is the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day, and the holiday. That's compared to two to four half barrels of Miller Lite they go through on an average weekend.

Mo's Irish Pub in Wauwatosa, 10842 W. Blue Mound Road, on average purchases about three kegs each of Miller Lite, Bud Light and Michelob Ultra a week. For St. Patrick's Day weekend, Mo's will have all of those beers in green, so that three tap lines are pouring green beer. Mo's plans to order 15 to 18 kegs of green beer, according to Mo's General Manager Kyle Johnson.

In 2022, Mo's ran out of green beer on St. Patrick's Day. Luckily, Beer Capitol Distributing has technicians on call on St. Patrick's Day to go to bars and make more green beer if needed.

Green food coloring drips out of a keg after it’s added as part of the process of making green beer at Beer Capitol Distributing in Sussex.
Green food coloring drips out of a keg after it’s added as part of the process of making green beer at Beer Capitol Distributing in Sussex.

On high-volume nights, bars usually want to have too much product in stock just in case. But green beer is different.

"Everybody likes green beer on St. Patrick's Day, but you never want to be stuck with it," Johnson said. "You can't give it away on March 18."

Bar owners say that is based on customers' perception that it's old beer, even though that isn't necessarily true.

"Any beer can take awhile to get tapped out, but it's more obvious when it's green," Luchini said.

Sales-service manager Ryan Mallery (left) feeds green food coloring into a keg as technician Jerry Wucinski controls the amount that’s added as part of the process of making green beer on March 6 at Beer Capitol Distributing in Sussex.
Sales-service manager Ryan Mallery (left) feeds green food coloring into a keg as technician Jerry Wucinski controls the amount that’s added as part of the process of making green beer on March 6 at Beer Capitol Distributing in Sussex.

Eagle Park has a unique green seltzer

Light beer is green only for St. Patrick's Day, but Milwaukee has at least one green malt beverage year round.

Ekto Kooler from Eagle Park Brewing is a fluorescent green hard seltzer made of "orange, tangerine and green," Eagle Park owner Max Borgardt said.

As with light beer on St. Patrick's Day, green food coloring gives the Eagle Park seltzer its color.

Borgardt didn't have numbers, but he said orders for kegs of Ekto Kooler were higher ahead of St. Patrick's Day.

It is on tap at various bars around Milwaukee, along with Eagle Park locations at 823 E. Hamilton St. and S64-W15640 Commerce Center Parkway, Muskego.

Ekto Kooler is also available in retail six-packs, making it an option for at-home St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Green beer is not canned.

A CO2 device is used to add green food coloring as Beer Capitol Draft sales-service department manager Ryan Mallery feeds the coloring through a beer line into a keg on March 6.
A CO2 device is used to add green food coloring as Beer Capitol Draft sales-service department manager Ryan Mallery feeds the coloring through a beer line into a keg on March 6.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Green beer is sold at most bars in Milwaukee, but what is it?