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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent

‘Really rich physics going on’: the science behind a flat pint of lager

A racegoer carries several pints of beer on the final day of the Grand National Festival horse race meeting at Aintree
Prof Jan Vermant and his team looked at the makeup of beer foam as a ‘typical Friday afternoon project’. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

A flat pint of beer with no head is a common gripe among pub-goers. And while the bar staff’s pint-pulling technique is often assumed to be the cause, scientists have discovered that the stability of beer foam is also highly dependent on the chemical makeup of the brew.

Prolonged fermented beers have the most stable foams, the study found, while the froth created by less-intensely fermented beers, including lagers, are inherently more likely to collapse before you have time to take the first sip.

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