To Boldly Drink Where No Man Has Drunk Before

I can't help but think it was no coincidence that around the same time as scientists say we may have found the first truly habitable planet in the universe, humankind has also developed the first beer that can be drunk in space.


This may seem like a frivolous invention, but when you think about it it's fairly monumental. I mean for one, it's beer. In space. But secondly, the habitable planet in question is roughly 20 light years away from earth. Which means that even if we could travel the entire journey at half light speed, a cosy cruising speed of 149,896,229 m/s, the journey would take 40 years. If we ever send colonists over there, they are going to need a good supply of beer, as you can't expect a large group of people to sit in a tin can for 40 years without having any fun. If people give up the larger portion of their life to travelling to a new world to set up a new society, they deserve the chance to actually relax. Hell, if we didn't let them they'd probably come out the other end of the journey having all killed each other.


At first reading the article announcing the beer worried me. The beer is made by Australians, which instantly gives rise to concern that they were producing some form of Space-Fosters. Lager is bad enough on earth, never mind taking it to space. Thankfully, having read further it seems that one of the main problems with trying to drink normal beer in space is its high carbonation, which causes it to have the lovely property in space of potentially floating back out of your stomach and into the air any time you burp. On the plus side, this pretty much makes lager a no-go for space (sign me up for NASA!). The other issue they have is that, much like in high altitude plane flights, the human taste buds are affected, causing flavour to generally be dampened. As such they had to brew a specifically low-carbonated and highly flavoured beer, meaning they decided to go for a variety of stout.

Space Stout, for Space Men

So not only have they made a space beer, but they've also made it one of the best kinds of beer they could have gone for. Everyone knows that real men drink stout or porter. The only downside to this that I can see is that, being the quite heavy beer stout is, once we get to the habitable planet Gliese 581d (or "New Yorkshire" as I'm provisionally calling it) it'll be quite hard to drink, as the double earth gravity the planet boasts will make it settle in the stomach like a bag of rocks. On the plus side, when your space-wife is moaning at you to stop watching the damn space-tv and get off the space-sofa to take her out to a space-restaurant, you really won't be lying when you say it's hard to pull yourself up from the sofa.

Welcome to New Yorkshire: No lager, wine bars or Justin Bieber allowed

Overall the planet seems perfectly suited for the average Yorkshireman. It only receives 30% of the intensity of sunlight of earth, which is pretty much the same as the average cloudy day in Yorkshire and it is kept heated to a liveable degree by the large amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, so no need to worry about bloody environmentalists banging on about reducing emissions.


All this seems a fair way off into the future, but with the invention of beer for space we can rest easy that once the day comes, we won't be without a pint or twelve for the journey. And remember: in space, nobody can hear you belch.