machine-envy

Its coming to that time of year again, when a festival-goer has to consider the prospect of paying Anheuser-Busch or the like upwards of three pounds for the privilege of a cold beer. Since the wall has arrived, the number of vendors of cold beer has declined, allowing the ridiculous prospect of only getting beer from a paper cup at London prices.

Which is why we need a good method for keeping your beer cold. In fact, I would like to offer the prize of a four pack of cold beer, redeemable at the festival, to anyone who can come up with a Glastonbury friendly beer chilling method. The rules are that the method must:

1. Not involve electricity
2. Be light to carry
3. Be made of stuff that you can get in the UK, legally

To kick you off, I think you could get a cold beer from 260ish grams of Ammonium Nitrate. Just mix it with water, place the beer in the water and off you go. At about a kilogram for a cold six pack, I’m not sure this passes (1). Also, ammonium nitrate is controlled in the UK so (3) might be a problem as well (but this is Glastonbury, so maybe not so much of a problem). The calculation also involves silly things such as a perfectly insulated chilling chamber, so the beer would probably end up lukewarm anyway.