A Cautionary Tale

I made an important discovery tonight: freezing and subsequently thawing beer causes it to become flat.

A few days ago I was anticipating guests in the evening but had little time to prepare, and rather than waste a bunch of salt and get a pot dirty doing the 2-minute cooling technique (which totally works, by the way), I decided to stick some cans in the freezer for an hour or so beforehand. Of course, I forgot and left them in there all night. The next morning I remembered and moved them to the fridge. The cans had not bulged or broken so I assumed they were still alright.

Last night I popped one open for my evening internet browsing, and it was awful. I dismissed it as a fluke, but after encountering the same nastiness tonight, I decided to investigate further. Turns out all the cans I had put in the freezer were affected.

Since that was all that was left in the fridge, at this point I was faced with a dilemma:

1. Cold flat beer
2. Warm carbonated beer

I chose the latter. Honestly, I think being cold actually made the flatness worse—it was kind of skunky-tasting too. How did I make it through 5 years in a fraternity without learning about this?

I couldn’t force myself to drink my vile creation, so I suffered the loss and poured the tainted beer down the drain. Fortunately I had only ruined about 5 cans, one of which I’d already stomached the night before. And it was PBR, so I wasn’t exactly burning hundred dollar bills. But still, beer down the drain! That’s a sad moment for any man.