The Hard Truth About Helium Beer

I was wrong—way wrong—I admit it. I inaccurately asked if skunky beer was this summer’s it beer. Turns out, Helium beer is the real must-have summer beer, as we’ve received comments from around the world asking us where to purchase Stone Brewing Co.’s Stochasticity Project Cr(He)am Ale with Helium featured in this news release that Stone published on CraftBeer.com at the BEGINNING OF APRIL.

After several months, even I had forgotten about the release until CraftBeer.com started getting notifications of comments that read:

“Gotta have this!!!! Is it still being made?!?!”

“Am I able to buy this and get it sent to Australia?”

“Really want to try this. Any retailers in Scotland?”

“Does it make you talk funny?”

Despite Stone admitting that this beer was simply an April Fools joke brewer Rick Blankemeier hatched with Mitch Steele, the comments have continued to come in. Urban legend website, Snopes even had to check it out and referenced a similar prank by Boston Beer. Snopes concluded what we thought many of you would have already assumed—Helium Beer is just a bunch of hot air.

Why Helium Beer Just Isn’t Possible

Stone’s Rick Blankemeier was kind enough to provide the quick and dirty as to why a helium beer could never exist.

• Helium is not soluble in water (or beer in this case). You can’t carbonate beer with helium like you can with carbon dioxide or nitrogen.
• Adding liquid helium would be impossible as it turns from liquid to gas at -220°F. You’d end up freezing your beer.
• Even if you could somehow add helium to beer, it would cause gushing because, again, helium is not soluble in beer.

So, April’s top beer prank turned into August’s en vogue beer-style—sort of.

“Who knew that this would capture everyone’s imagination?” said Blankemeier. “I guess I could make a fortune if I could somehow violate the laws of thermodynamics and physical chemistry to put helium in beer.”

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