Archive for Beer

“Optimized” Beer Glass Shapes

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on October 21, 2024 by telescoper

I couldn’t resist sharing a piece of fundamental research I found in an article on the arXiv withthe abstract:

This paper addresses the problem of determining the optimum shape for a beer glass that minimizes the heat transfer while the liquid is consumed, thereby keeping it cold for as long as possible. The proposed solution avoids the use of insulating materials. The glass is modeled as a body of revolution generated by a smooth curve, constructed from a material with negligible thermal resistance, but insulated at the base. The ordinary differential equation describing the problem is derived from the first law of Thermodynamics applied to a control volume encompassing the liquid. This is an inverse optimization problem, aiming to find the shape of the glass (represented by curve S) that minimizes the heat transfer rate. In contrast, the direct problem aims to determine the heat transfer rate for a given geometry. The solution obtained here is analytic, and the resulting function describing the relation between height ans radius of the glass, is in closed form, providing a family of optimal glass shapes that can be manufactured by conventional methods. Special attention is payed to the dimensions and the capacity of the resulting shapes.

arXiv:2410.12043v1

The author’s favourite shape is this:

Of course those of us who are used to proper beer don’t really want it to be cold in the first place, but I hope this doesn’t sound bitter. My main reservation about the conclusion of the paper is that it doesn’t seem to take into account how easy it is to drink from the glass. In that respect, I’m not convinced by the shape above!

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Mummified by Beer

Posted in Biographical with tags , on June 24, 2009 by telescoper

Years ago I went on holiday to Egypt with a friend. It wasn’t the usual kind of holiday because we didn’t stay in a hotel, but at the house of my friend’s cousin Moira who worked in the Cairo American College, in a suburb of the city. Since we were both pretty skint at that time we got an incredibly cheap flight to Cairo from London via Bucharest with the Romanian airline Tarom. The less said about the flight the better, especially the food on it, because it made Ryanair look positively luxurious, but at least we got there alive.

The first evening there we were both very tired and a bit overwhelmed by the surroundings, but we decided to go into one of the local bars for a quick drink before going to bed. Only two kinds of beer were available, both called Stella. (I should point out for legal reasons that this is not Stella Artois that we’re talking about!) The Egyptian Stella came in two varieties: Stella National (which was one Egyptian pound for a pint bottle; about 20p in British money then) and Stella Export (5 Egyptian pounds). Being impoverished, I ordered a pint of the National version. It tasted slightly odd, but basically OK. I drank up and went back to the house.

The next morning I had the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my life. I couldn’t understand it. I saw Moira at breakfast and she told me I looked dreadful. I explained that I had only had one pint the night before. She looked at me in horror.

“You didn’t drink the Stella National, did you?”

I said yes, I did, but I only had a pint.

She explained that the reason the “National” version was so cheap was that it contained something to stop it going off in the hot climate. The “Export” version didn’t have this ingredient because they couldn’t possibly export it if it did. The preserving agent turned out to be formaldehyde, which is used in embalming corpses.

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