GREEN BEER DAY: TRIVIAL OR UNITING?
BY OLIVIA LEGGANS PHOTO COURTESY OF LAUREN STIDHAM
In Athens, Ohio, the Wednesday before spring break means green-stained hands, shamrock beads, and day drinking. The premature St. Patrick’s Day pregame is here: Green Beer Day. Some may dismiss Green Beer Day as a messy, albeit festive, excuse for Ohio University students to skip class and day-drink, but the history of green beer bolsters the idea that silly traditions can glue communities together like no other.
Green Beer Day is often attributed to our rivals in Oxford, Ohio, but the practice started more than 100 years ago in Spokane, Washington. In 1910, The Spokane Press first mentioned the practice of dyeing beer in an article titled, “Green Beer. Be Jabbers!”
Four years later, The Evening Independent detailed St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the Bronx, New York, attributing the discovery of green beer to a corner’s physician, Dr. Thomas H. Curtin. The piece reveals “that the effect is brought about by one drop of wash blue in a certain quantity of beer.”
Bluing uses small amounts of blue dye, also known as washing blue, to brighten white fabrics. Since the popularization of bleach, bluing has gone out of fashion, but liquid bluing is still sold today. Old recipes for bluing agents often contained toxic acids or chemicals that are harmful if touched or ingested.
Thankfully, these likely lethal origins of green beer do not meet modern safety standards, and most bars opt for a few drops of edible green dye. For Green Beer Day in Athens, bars typically dye their own beer kegs and well liquor, adorning their walls with as much green décor as possible.
Every year, despite upcoming exams, OU students flock to Court Street, sporting endless shades of green, and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day before leaving for spring break. They descend from the bars and house parties with hands and lips dyed dark green, chanting and yelling in a typical drunk manner.
The Evening Independent’s coverage of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations conjured up the same vehement festiveness that unites OU students at the beginning of every “fest” season. The article described an extravagant celebration at The Schnerer Club in the Bronx, New York: “Everything possible was green or decorated with that color, and all through the banquet Irish songs were sung, and green beer was served.”
Even in stuffy, member-only men’s clubs like The Schnerer Club, the seemingly silly beer-dying traditions likely helped to bond communities in the face of everyday life. On the front page of the same 1914 issue, The Evening Independent reported on the eviction of striking miners from their homes, shootings in factories, and the desire to outlaw divorce to produce a “better and better race of people.”
While imbibing on St. Patrick’s Day cannot sweep away public issues and turmoil, the human propensity to join in on time-honored traditions, even in the face of hardship, is a hopeful promise. Regardless of the century or the politics, inequities and injustices are bound to continue, yet, dismissing the role that communal celebrations and festivities play in strengthening communities and raising spirits could make real social progress more difficult in the process.
