Can Your Foam Hold A Quarter?

My friends went to a beer festival some months back where they met an old German man who told them that where he was from in a local pub they served beer with a foam so thick it had to be poured hours before drinking to let it settle and fill the cup, and that they would do this for hours, also he told them that if they place a quarter on the foam of the beer and if it sank they would through away the batch???? is this a wise tale or was he telling the truth.

ive sceen the germans do thee coin trick on one of the beer hunter episodes. however your story might be a little exaggerated... dunno

Some of that sounds exaggerated, but the claim that the foam could hold a quarter could very well be true. Sam Adams makes this claim, too, and it isn't too far fetched to believe that a stiff-foamed head, with small, tight bubbles could hold a coin on top.

It seems like it could be possible. There was a bar back when I was in college that used to float M&M's in the head of a Guinness.

im just telling you all how it was told to me lol i think the same its seems that some parts of it could be exaggerated but i think maybe there could be some truth behind it.

I know breweries like Dogfish Head will toss a whole batch for having a slight off-taste and not passing their flavor QA...but tossing it for not holding a quarter on the head? Sounds like an old wives tale.

I think he was maybe exaggerating a little. I've been in plenty of German brew pubs, and it's true that the pours take a while while the head settles and they reach the fill line but I never saw one take more than ten or fifteen minutes or so.

I put a bottle cap on top of my imperial stout's head and it held with no problems. I had to try it after Sam Adams Jim Koch claimed that their beers could do so.

lol nice info here

I mean no offence at all to the OP, but I'm gonna file this thread under "Who gives a crap"

Anyone who uses their beer as a coin purse is still using a coin purse, no matter how manly he thinks his coin purse is!

me, i kinda give a crap . you know no offense to L.P but it seems to be that there are alot of stuck up people on this site kinda deterring.

Gnome, as I've opined recently, there is NO point in using the smilies. People are just going to ignore them.

They have quarters in Germany?

good point

schweaty said:

I put a bottle cap on top of my imperial stout's head and it held with no problems. I had to try it after Sam Adams Jim Koch claimed that their beers could do so.

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i've heard about how all the girls like the A pounded, but that doesn't make me want to put my schlong in there!

OT: who is this sexy woman in your avatar??

I am actually sitting on my IIPA head right now

I can put a dollar bill on the head of my beers. 4 times better.

The story sounds exaggerated to me.
German beers are normally done with a two part pour similar to Guinness, when larger events are on we would often line up one or two hundred beers to settle before running them as needed back through the production line to fill them and also it's given the head time to set and they just need a top off to be presentable.
Most beers don't retain their head that long so if left 15-20 minutes the first pour head had definitely died off on any beer, the only beer that might hold it longer would be a weizen.
I've not seen the coin on top of the beer as a test in Germany, but it is said and doable with a good pour of Guinness.

I'd say the old man was telling "maerchen", and there was a mix of truth and fairy tale in there.

Tell him the next time " Erzaehl mir nichts vom Pferd alter" (translates to, stop talking rubbish)

BTW, I think it was on a Mr. Science TV show I watched as a child, but he took a coin (don't remember the denomination), and carefully set it in a glass of water, and the surface tension appeared to make it to float. Once the demonstration was over, he touched one side, and the coin sank.
Moral of the story is, that you could probably do the same thing with other liquids and emulsions or foams.

A German mark is the same size as a U.S. quarter.

DuffManMississippi said:

me, i kinda give a crap . you know no offense to L.P but it seems to be that there are alot of stuck up people on this site kinda deterring.

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I'm sorry that you took offence, that was not my intention. I started my post indicating that I meant no offence, and I used two smileys to make it as clear as I possibly could that I was just kidding.

I'll try to be less "stuck up" in the future and I'll take a note of your name so that I can be extra double careful. <------Winky smiley.

beer hunter the bohemian collection, although its czech beer, they say their lagering technique gives the head a firm creaminess. then he goes on to say they place a coin on top of the head to show their beer is so good it even keeps their currency afloat...

obviously there is truth to this

Few weeks back we tried playing quarter bounce with my homebrew, but we had to switch to flip cup because the quarters would just bounce off the foam!

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

I'm sorry that you took offence, that was not my intention. I started my post indicating that I meant no offence, and I used two smileys to make it as clear as I possibly could that I was just kidding.

I'll try to be less "stuck up" in the future and I'll take a note of your name so that I can be extra double careful. <------Winky smiley.

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lol thank you for the smiley's ill try to keep a eye out for them in the future.