Because of the natural confluence of interests that cause science and beer to go hand-in-hand, we have written a lot of articles about beer.
Beer foam, beer goggles, Jurassic beer, whether or not cold filtering is better, deep fried beer; you name it, we have it. What we did not have, in all of those academic discussions about beer, were any engineers with a way to make beer for emergency situations. Fortunately, while we have the best science and technology here at Science 2.0, in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the rest of media there is still some occasional good stuff. The Morning Cup linked to Springwise, (see how complicated it can be? That is why you can just read here, we do all of the work for you) who mentioned Pat's Backcountry Beverages and their Carbonator Bottle, shipping now.
Link and credit: Pat's Backcountry Beverages
What, you no longer need weeks and weeks of waiting to make your own beer? My confirmation bias says that is so.
In olden days, apparently those were before September of 2012, carbonating beer either happened during secondary fermentation using counter-pressure (like you can in your house) or mechanically in a tank by pumping carbon dioxide in and using colder temperatures to speed up absorption.(2) That's right, making beer absorbs a greenhouse gas so if you make enough, you just might save the planet.
The Carbonator bottle does not do that, it very much emits greenhouse gases, so all you Alaskan wilderness hikers using this thing should lump yourselves in with ANWR oil companies and buy carbon offsets from Al Gore.
Here it is in action, but not with beer. The beer pouches are not released yet, this is for soda, which is a bit easier. (1)
They, of course, call it a 'carbonated beverage system' but no one is humping this thing around Alaska in order to make a crappy soda next to the campfire. It's for beer. Will it work? I have no idea, it isn't available except for soda. They say it does. And it isn't dehydrated beer or anything you can enjoy with Judy Jetson, it is instead concentrated and then fizzed up in the field. Beer is 95% water so it may be terrific, just add water, carbonate and grab your guitar.
The concentrates are the way to go, they can practically give away the bottle. Contents are renewable. I own a Keurig coffee maker, for example, and it has pods for the coffee - the machines makes great coffee and they got popular but in 2006 the coffee maker company got bought by the company that made pods for the coffee maker.
So if this thing works, look for my next venture to be making these pouches for military MREs. Anyone know a Senator I can schmooze? I'd better get started now.
NOTES:
(1) And the most fun to watch since those Shake Weight commercials debuted:
(2) Like anything, it is up for debate. The science says any difference is subjective but, like with people gullible enough to buy organic food or homeopathy magic water, passions will run high. Here is a good discussion. I invalidate his data because he washed his glasses in a dishwasher, which means he used commercial soap and the lipids in the soap messed with the lipds in the beer post-brewing. See how fun that is?
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