Beer rationed as UK faces shortage of food-grade CO2

[mongoose33]

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ned-as-uks-food-grade-carbon-dioxide-runs-low

The horror!

Perhaps the most concerning item:

A spokesperson for the wholesaler, which was recently bought by Tesco, said: “Due to the international shortage of CO2, we are experiencing some supply issues on soft drinks and beer.

I advise everyone to lay in emergency supplies of CO2 NOW!

 

[day_trippr]

This appears to be a "perfect storm" situation localized to Europe. I don't think Wisconsin will be affected
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/22/caused-uks-carbon-dioxide-shortage/

Cheers!

 

[mongoose33]

This appears to be a "perfect storm" situation localized to Europe. I don't think Wisconsin will be affected
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/22/caused-uks-carbon-dioxide-shortage/

Cheers!

I'm not taking any chances.

 

[madscientist451]

Probably fake news to drum up some business.....
The "rationing" limits are 10 cases of beer and 5 cases of cider.
So on your day off, you could hit 10 stores and "stock up" with 100 cases of beer and 50 cases of cider to get you through the week.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Couldn't they just substitute nitrogen for the time being? I mean, I know not everything is a stout, but it's better than not drinking beer!

 

[TGFV]

It's more than fake news, soft drink companies are ramping into overtime trying to find more sources of CO2 there, hoping to grab before the hard beverage industry.

And they are potentially looking overseas for condensed CO2

 

[GPP33]

Wait. Our climate is spinning out of control due to CO2 emissions and the UK can’t find any CO2? Am I the only one that finds this ironic?

 

[aeviaanah]

You think this is bad, how bout the shortage of helium?

https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i12/Helium-supplies-tightening-again.html

 

[El Nino]

Wait. Our climate is spinning out of control due to CO2 emissions and the UK can’t find any CO2? Am I the only one that finds this ironic?

Somebody should invent something that can take the co2 from the air lol. Save the planet, keg more beer!

 

[beermanpete]

Time to revisit cask/bottle conditioning.

 

[mongoose33]

You think this is bad, how bout the shortage of helium?

https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i12/Helium-supplies-tightening-again.html

This thread is ballooning out of control.

 

[FunkedOut]

Imagine if you could add something to your wort that would make CO2 during fermentation.

 

[dyqik]

Time to revisit cask/bottle conditioning.

It's not exactly "revisit" in the UK. Most pubs already serve good local beer by cask and handpump. It's mostly just the big internationally owned lagers, Guinness that suffer from this, although there are many smaller US style craft beer breweries now as well.

 

[bucketnative]

You think this is bad, how bout the shortage of helium?

https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i12/Helium-supplies-tightening-again.html

It pisses me off every time I see stupid Mylar balloons at the grocery store. Waste of He.

 

[ProblemChild]

Wait. Our climate is spinning out of control due to CO2 emissions and the UK can’t find any CO2? Am I the only one that finds this ironic?

Beat me to it!

One would think that environmentally responsible people would rush to pull this stuff out of our air and find a proper use for it!!!

 

[IslandLizard]

It pisses me off every time I see stupid Mylar balloons at the grocery store. Waste of He.

My neighbor threw a party for his kid last year, got 2 steel red Helium tanks (each the size of a 20# propane tank) that have been on his "curb" ever since. Recycling won't take them apparently, and they can't be refilled or reused according to the label. Think of the resources that went into making those tanks. And getting them back into the proper recycling channel. Just for a little bit of Helium?

In the labs we used to catch Helium in a huge bladder in the top of the 3 story entryway.

This thread is ballooning out of control.

Yup!

 

[aeviaanah]

This thread is ballooning out of control.

That’s so noble of you.

 

[DownstairsBrewing]

Somebody should invent something that can take the co2 from the air lol. Save the planet, keg more beer!

Well, there is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), which can capture Co2 emissions from power plants, scrub them to remove any acidity and then put the CO2 in a geological reservoir. It is just too expensive to be viable when used for a thermal power plant. But think of the possibilities if that CO2 stream could be used for carbonated beverages....we could make Coal Porter!

 

[TGFV]

There is also look at using it in algae farms, and while they are high fat and high protein strains there aren't high carbohydrate yet.

Though I could see a great alage ale in my hands in day

 

[seatazzz]

Algae ale...OMG there's the next hipster trend. Gee thanks. Just when we finally thought we were through with the glitter beer thing...I'm old enough to remember when chlorophyll was THE thing to have in gum, candy, etc.

 

[seatazzz]

And just because someone mentioned tacos....

 

[TGFV]

Hey I am still researching and designing a silver glitter in black witbier recipie!

In all seriousness though, unless they heavily edit the genes of a algae or breed a good macro strain we won't be seeing a convertible starch to sugar source species anytime soon.

Though it would be amazing.