Why beer turns foamy on impact revealed

A new study has revealed the reason why beer turns from a liquid to a foamy state when one bottle is bumped against another.

Scientists at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has revealed the physical phenomenon and said that it is a process with three well-defined phases.

Javier Rodríguez, professor in UC3M’s Department of Thermal and Fluids Engineering said that expansion and compression waves appear in the first phase, which causes the gas cavities (bubbles) to burst at the bottom of the bottle.

Afterwards, small balls of foam are formed because the bubbles break into even smaller ones, and as they weigh less than the liquid surrounding them, these bubbles move to the surface so rapidly that the final result is similar to an explosion.

According to the study, which was carried out in collaboration with the Institute Jean le Rond D’Alembert and the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, the foam appears because of high concentration of carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages.