The science of beer
Today, I'm studying beer foam. For the last couple of years at Burning Man, there's been a problem with the beer being too foamy. We're not sure why. Is it the heat? The transportation? The way we're tapping it?
I've not learned the answer to that, but I have learned that there are a lot of highly scientific research articles on the subject of beer foam. (see, for example, Demonstration of the exponential decay law using beer froth.) Apparently it has to do with lipid content and fractals and all sorts of biochemistry and physics that I don't really understand.
None of these articles have answered my question. I suspect I'll have to talk to an actual beer distributor who will tell me something like: "you're shipping them on their sides? Woman, don't you know that kegs should be shipped right side up? You'll ruin the beer!"
So, before I embarrass myself in front of a beer distributor, I ask you, my friends: Does anyone have any ideas why kegs of Shiner beer (a bock beer if that makes any difference), born and raised in Texas, put on a 40 foot shipping container (I'm not sure which ways the kegs are put on the truck, I imagine whatever fits please let me know if ya'll think this makes a difference), shipped to Nevada under presumably normal road conditions, and tapped in a) arid and b) hot conditions at around 4000 feet foam like a pissed off camel?
Also Warning: If you go to the scientific journal Nature's website, in search of a beer article called The von Neumann relation generalized to coarsening of three-dimensional microstructures, there are snakes on the front page. Further warning, the article you're searching for has a shitload of equations with lots of greek letters involved. I had to run away.
I've not learned the answer to that, but I have learned that there are a lot of highly scientific research articles on the subject of beer foam. (see, for example, Demonstration of the exponential decay law using beer froth.) Apparently it has to do with lipid content and fractals and all sorts of biochemistry and physics that I don't really understand.
None of these articles have answered my question. I suspect I'll have to talk to an actual beer distributor who will tell me something like: "you're shipping them on their sides? Woman, don't you know that kegs should be shipped right side up? You'll ruin the beer!"
So, before I embarrass myself in front of a beer distributor, I ask you, my friends: Does anyone have any ideas why kegs of Shiner beer (a bock beer if that makes any difference), born and raised in Texas, put on a 40 foot shipping container (I'm not sure which ways the kegs are put on the truck, I imagine whatever fits please let me know if ya'll think this makes a difference), shipped to Nevada under presumably normal road conditions, and tapped in a) arid and b) hot conditions at around 4000 feet foam like a pissed off camel?
Also Warning: If you go to the scientific journal Nature's website, in search of a beer article called The von Neumann relation generalized to coarsening of three-dimensional microstructures, there are snakes on the front page. Further warning, the article you're searching for has a shitload of equations with lots of greek letters involved. I had to run away.