It’s cold up here in northern Sweden right now. I’m not talking “brr, it’s a bit chilly round the knees” type of cold. I’m talking about the sort of cold you see in apocalyptic disaster movies.
This causes particular problems for beer drinkers. I can’t count the number of times I’ve forgotten bottles of beer in the car overnight, only to return the next morning to find a freeze-framed explosion of beer and glass in the back seat.
To prove just how frosty it really is, and of course for the general advancement of science, I’m going to see just how long it will take to freeze a bottle of beer outside in my front garden.
The scientific parameters of this experiment are fairly straightforward. I placed a bottle of 312 Urban Wheat Ale (a pretty tasteless 4.2% ABV washy wheat I will be reviewing soon) outside at exactly 8am this morning and took this picture of it. The temperature was exactly -26 degrees.
Every hour I will return and take a picture of the bottle and record the temperature until all the beer has frozen.
I’ll be sending my findings to the leading scientific journals as well as to Brewdog who may find the results useful when concocting their next ice beer.
Next photo in under an hour from now…………….
9am: The beer is already frozen, but I want to see explosions before I’m happy. Current temperature -24 degrees.
10am: I want to see explosions GODDAMMIT! I’m freezing my arse off in the name of science up here! Beer frozen solid. Current temperature -21 degrees.
11am: Look, I could keep posting pictures of a frozen bottle of beer, but seriously, what’s the point? If and when it explodes I’ll get back to you. Right now I’m going to set fire to my kitchen table in an attempt to stay warm. Current temperature: -20 degrees.
14.20: Hang on…something’s finally happening! Could this be the moment we’ve all been waiting for all day? Current temperature: -18 degrees (and falling).
10:30 The Next Day – The question on the trembling lips of a nation…..did the beer explode?
Well no, it bloody well didn’t. Despite leaving it outside all day and night in temperatures below -20 degress it merely fizzled and farted a bit.
Therefore I can summarise the findings of my scientific experiment as follows:
Observation 1) Beer doesn’t explode unles it is placed in the back of my car or some other place where I don’t actually want it to explode.
Observation 2) An article about exploding beer attracted 10 comments on BeerSweden whereas an indepth article on a visit to an international brewery resulted in just one comment being posted.
This is very interesting data indeed……….:)
come on, come on!
I knew it!
Good thing you didn’t try and freeze a Bud Light, or else it’d probably have exploded the instant you took it outside.
Ha ha ha
I predict the beer will explode around 15:00.
Now this is an advance in science. How filled is the bottle? Has it broken yet?
Daniel
It is very full and STILL hasn’t broken yet. Surely Goose Island don’t use anti-freeze when making this beer, do they?
This is kind of a let-down. I always wanted to see what it looked like when a bottle exploded. If it doesn’t exploded I think you should shift focus and see how long time it will take before the bottle erodes…
Yeah I think hourly updates on the total decomposition of this object would be quite engaging…I agree. Darren, do you think you could swing that?
Well it’s almost 18:00 and despite some ‘leakage’ it’s pretty obvious there ain’t going to be no fireworks any time soon. I’m going to leave the bottle out overnight and if it hasn’t exploded by the morning I will personally smack it with my snow shovel. That should do the trick. Current temperature: -20 degrees.
Try to write a factual error on a beer blog. Then the comments will explode!
Nice!
Surely I’ve already done that?