A new study from French researchers claim to have determined the number of bubbles in that beer you’re drinking. And American Craft Beer thinks its findings are beyond questionable.

Here’s the Deal

We’ve all been there, right? Poured a beer and dreamily watched the cascade of bubbles ascend purposely, eventually becoming part of the beer’s fluffy white head. And depending on how many beers you’ve had you may found yourself wondering just how many bubbles make up that glass of beer.

Well now scientists from the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France have come up with a number, calculating that a gently poured half-pint of lager will produce between 200,000 and 2 million bubbles before going flat.

Okay…we guess.

So how did this study, which was funded by the American Chemical Society, come up with that number?

The researchers arrived at the bubble count (a number that struck us as amazingly broad for a “scientific” study), through a combination of carbon dioxide measurements that we don’t pretend to understand.

Calculations also took into account how the beer glass design encouraged bubble formation and high-speed photography helped them track the bubbles floating to the top.

According to the paper, the scientists used a 5% ABV commercial Heineken lager for the study. But wouldn’t different beer styles elicit different bubble results? And wouldn’t the yeast employed and fermentation approaches also be a factor?

These details from the study…

Four identical 500 mL machine-blown glasses (ARC International, France) was used for this set of experiments. Glasses were thoroughly washed with a dilute aqueous acetic acid solution, rinsed with distilled water, and then dried in a drying oven at 60 °C.

After uncapping a bottle stored at 6 °C (42.8°F) the whole 250 mL of beer was gently poured in a tilted glass to prevent too much turbulence. 

According to Liger-Belair is lead author of the paper which was published in the ACS journal in March 2020, “The number of bubbles likely to form in a glass of beer is the result of the fine interplay between dissolved CO2, tiny particles or glass imperfections acting as bubble nucleation sites, and ascending bubble dynamics.”

But we question if those beer bubble dynamics could ever be standardized, let alone accurately quantified.

Bottom Line

We suggest that American Chemical Society ask for their money back. American Craft Beer has some opinions that were willing to share for free.

Any study that assumes that bubble results utilizing one style and brand of beer, in one type of beer glass, can be universally generalized to include all styles of beer and the multitude of differently shaped beer glasses that are made to best showcase those styles, is dreaming, no matter how scientific its posturing.

And you’re telling us that the pour was the same every time. Sorry, unless fine-tuned machinery was involved, we’re not buying it.

So we’re calling bullshit on these particular findings…What do you think?