Cheers! Blue beer is now being made in France
Blueberries, blue cheese, Blue Curaçao—all terms we know. But blue beer?? If the makers of this session IPA have their way, we won’t find that so strange anymore. In fact, in France it’s a hit!
Because there, in the northern French city of Roubaix (just below the Belgian border), a brewery and a spirulina company teamed up to concoct and produce a beer with a remarkably blue color. The first 1,500 bottles flew off the shelves, so they’re brewing at full speed.
Powerful stuff
Let’s go back to spirulina for a moment, because it may not be part of everyone’s daily diet. Spirulina is a dietary supplement made from, among other things, blue-green saltwater algae. It contains many vitamins and minerals and is credited with all kinds of health benefits.
In addition, consuming seaweed and algae-based products is a future-proof way of getting protein. Etika Spirulina worked with the brewers at Hoppy Urban Brew (HUB) to add the stuff to an IPA, with the aim of raising awareness of their product in this way. The result is called ‘The Line’.
Mixed message
Sebastien Verbeke of HUB says it was a major challenge to bring out the blue pigment, rather than the green pigment, from the raw spirulina. But after many rounds of testing, he and his partner Mathilde Vanmansart succeeded in achieving exactly the desired color and flavor in the beer.
According to Vanmansart, it is confusing at first; “your eyes see blue and send a certain message to your brain. But once you taste it, it really is a session IPA—very light, hoppy, citrusy and refreshing. A little lychee flavor at the back of the mouth.”
Sharing together
The makers are willing to share their research with others who also want to try brewing it, as long as it is done on a local scale. But at the moment, they still appear to be working hard to increase production, as the first fifteen hundred bottles sold out in the last quarter of last year.
Well, cheers then! And let the jokes about Smurf beer begin in 3, 2, 1…
Also read:
- Belgian court rules in dispute over beer name
- These are the tastiest things to eat with your IPA
- A royal toast with Máxima’s beer
Source: Food and Wine
