Some helium with your hops?

August 10, 2017 2:58 PM

Testing helium beer (SLYT, subtitles) The beer that is what laughter tastes like... (sorry Mike's Hard Lemonade) "Watch at your own risk!" -My Ribs
posted by Amor Bellator (23 comments total)

Worth noting the original April 1st upload date...
posted by howfar at 3:04 PM on August 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

...um, it's still totally doable with science though, right? Because I might need this in my life at some point
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:10 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

that point might be later today
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:10 PM on August 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Great catch, howfar! I should have thought to add that detail!
posted by Amor Bellator at 3:17 PM on August 10, 2017

Let's overanalyze this hoax:

• Typically, beer is swallowed not aspirated.
• In order for helium to affect your voice, it must pass through your larynx in sufficient proportion to standard atmospheric gas to audibly affect the speed of sound across your vocal cords.
• I'm now tired of this debunking so there will be no more bullets.

posted by pmbuko at 3:18 PM on August 10, 2017 [12 favorites]

Follow-up video from the sidebar.

Despite the reality, that video was incredibly fun to watch.
posted by curious nu at 3:18 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

nooooo science don't fail me nowwwwww
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:19 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

What I'm saying is if a crazy shitlord tinpot dictator can harness the power of the force that runs the stars I think Americans can figure out a way to heliumize beer.
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:21 PM on August 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ok you guys but THERE IS STILL HOPE, because BURPS PASS JUST ABOVE THE VOCAL FOLDS, right? So the real question is whether helium beer would give you temporary-pitch-altering HELIUM BURPS.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:23 PM on August 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

Just to add: in no way trying to perpetuate a hoax, I am sorry to inadvertently spread the video if people are unaware it IS a hoax. Only sharing a link I found personally hysterical. Again, I should have thought to add that detail in the description. :)
posted by Amor Bellator at 3:29 PM on August 10, 2017

I am sorry to inadvertently spread the video if people are unaware it IS a hoax. Only sharing a link I found personally hysterical.

I had no idea until I found the follow-up video, it is 100% awesome fun either way.

*drinks*

I liked going in not knowing, honestly. Thanks for the link! =)
posted by curious nu at 3:39 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting the follow-up video, curious nu! Would have been a good save on my part, to have included it as well. Infrequent contributor, please bear with me!
posted by Amor Bellator at 3:44 PM on August 10, 2017

(On review: that is twice now that I have felt like you have my back, curious nu, thank you! Ha ha! I think the peals of laughter are almost involuntary while watching, whether being in on the joke, or not. My ribs still hurt. )

*toasts you* Cheers! :D
posted by Amor Bellator at 3:51 PM on August 10, 2017

The beer might be fake, but the laughs are real! Oh man. I died laughing and my ghost had to type this.
posted by Autumnheart at 3:56 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

I can't believe this wasn't posted before. I'm surprised I didn't put this in a comment before, if not post it. I saw it somewhere (probably around April 1) and 95% of the things I see on the internet I see here first.

Anyway. Still funny even if it's as fake as the glow-in-the-dark Mt. Dew I posted long ago.
posted by MtDewd at 4:14 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Anyway. Still funny even if it's as fake as the glow-in-the-dark Mt. Dew I posted long ago.

BRB, off to patent green fluorescent protein shakes
posted by stevis23 at 5:50 PM on August 10, 2017

Thanks for posting the follow-up video, curious nu! Would have been a good save on my part, to have included it as well. Infrequent contributor, please bear with me!

BURN! BURNSES THE BAD AND LAZY POSSSSSterrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I keed, I keed. I keed out of love!

No worries. At least you don't suffer the agonizing pain of Poster Paralysis I seem to suffer so much any more...

Neat (to me) linkage? To MeFi or not to MeFi, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of post deletion, or to take arms against a lack of favorites...

Yeah, no. Not for the Blue...

logs on MeFi two days later...

OH! FOR MATT'S SAKE! REALLY? 1 POST, 36 FAVORITES, AND 163 COMMENTS?

dejectedly and unenergetically highfives MtDewd in a spirit of cranky commiseration...

NOTE: I can occasionally do plum poetry, but ruminant rhyme? Not so much. Perhaps a folio of fictional flatulent fustian?

Yeah, I better quit now whilst lies quiescent the banhammer....
posted by Samizdata at 8:51 PM on August 10, 2017

If we really want to overanalyze this:

Carbonated drinks actually form an equilibrium reaction between carbon-dioxide and carbonic acid. It can convert between the two based on things like pressure and temperature. (Why drinks can taste too sweet when they go flat is they lose a bit of acidity.)

Helium, on the other hand, is a noble gas, so it won't react with anything. And helium is one of the least soluble gasses. (TLDR: at the same temperature, you can dissolve over 1000 times the mass of CO₂ as Helium)

So if you did try to dissolve helium in beer, the amount you'd succeed in dissolving would be minuscule.
posted by RobotHero at 9:44 PM on August 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

If we really want to overanalyze this:

Carbonated drinks actually form an equilibrium reaction between carbon-dioxide and carbonic acid. It can convert between the two based on things like pressure and temperature. (Why drinks can taste too sweet when they go flat is they lose a bit of acidity.)

Helium, on the other hand, is a noble gas, so it won't react with anything. And helium is one of the least soluble gasses. (TLDR: at the same temperature, you can dissolve over 1000 times the mass of CO2 as Helium)

So if you did try to dissolve helium in beer, the amount you'd succeed in dissolving would be minuscule.

Yeah, but according to that site, nitrogen looks just about as soluble as helium and I KNOW nitrogen is used to boost carbonation in some beers.

But, yeah, you don't inhale beer gases properly to make the helium beer work.
posted by Samizdata at 10:09 PM on August 10, 2017

Upon checking again, those graphs are rather misleading when you are tired. Ignore what I said about to solubility of nitrogen and helium. This never happened.

glares

THIS. NEVER. HAPPENED.
posted by Samizdata at 10:11 PM on August 10, 2017

So if you did try to dissolve helium in beer, the amount you'd succeed in dissolving would be minuscule.

So you just need to increase the pressure. Granted the pressure required will be really high, so you would need thick steel walled beer bottles that look more like gas cylinders than beer bottles, and you would need a special regulator to not have the entire bottle of beer explode in a mass of lighter than air foam upon opening, but that would be cool looking as well.
posted by koolkat at 1:49 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

What I'm saying is if a crazy shitlord tinpot dictator can harness the power of the force that runs the stars

Well that's a creative way to say "celebrity" oh wait no you mean the other one
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:03 AM on August 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

THIS. NEVER. HAPPENED.

Back to Poster Paralysis then?
posted by MtDewd at 12:32 PM on August 16, 2017