We love a cold beer at any time of year. It’s great to crack open your favorite brew at a movie night, a summer party, or the end of a stressful work week, but what happens when all your beer is at room temperature? No one wants to wait hours for their beer to chill in the refrigerator, so we have rounded up some faster solutions.
Methods For Chilling Beer
Wrap Your Bottles In Wet Paper Towels
- 10 minutes
One of the best things you can do for your beer is to wrap the bottles in wet paper towels or rags and place them in the freezer. In 10 to 15 minutes, you should have a cooler beer on your hands. While this is a useful method, you should be careful: don’t forget your bottle is in the freezer, since leaving it for too long can cause it to explode. When you put a beer in the freezer, set an alarm on your phone. You’d also do well to transfer your beer from its glass bottle into something else to avoid any shattering.
Mix Salt With Ice Water
- 3-5 minutes
This is easily the quickest method for chilling a beer, and it’s also the go-to for many ale drinkers. All you’ll need to do is fill a cooler with ice cubes, water, and plenty of salt. Salt lowers water’s freezing point and does it fast, which is why you’ll have significantly colder water in a few minutes. There’s no potential for explosions in this method, so you’ll be fine cooling your beer in glass or cans.
Get A Beer Chiller
- Chilling times will vary.
Lots of gizmos out there will chill your beer in a matter of minutes. Of course, finding the right one could be a challenge, but there are some gadgets (such as the ChillVeza chill sticks, which take about an hour to work) that will maintain your ideal temperature. Since no two chillers are the same, chilling times will vary.
Preparation Techniques
No one likes having to research how to chill beer at the last minute. Luckily, there are ways to prevent your beer from getting warm in the first place.
Place Your Bottles In Koozies
Beer koozies really do serve a purpose: they insulate your beer, helping ensure it doesn’t get warm before you’ve had a chance to drink. Koozies are inexpensive, too, so just a couple of dollars will get you an essential tool for keeping your beer chilled.
Chill Your Beer Ahead Of Time
This should be a no-brainer, but when you’re busy getting everything ready for a Super Bowl party or bringing a case to someone’s house, chilling your beer beforehand isn’t always possible. However, if you can place your pack in the fridge before your event, you really ought to. You’ll save yourself tons of time and hassle.
Pack Your Beer Properly
Loading a cooler with ice and cans of beer sounds like an easy task, and it is! But what is the best way to cool your beer down and keep it cool throughout the day? First, place your beverages inside the cooler. Then place the ice over them. The coldness of the ice will travel downward and keep your cans chill for hours. Also, depending on how much beer you’re bringing, ice blocks might do a better job cooling than your standard cubes.
If you’re traveling somewhere for a day trip, make sure to keep your cooler out of the sun and avoid draining the water once the ice melts. Like koozies, melted ice water insulates your beer and helps keep it cold.
Another good tip is to chill your cooler before you use it. When your cooler is chilled, it can keep the ice intact for longer periods of time.
These are just some of the ways you can reward yourself with a few chilled cans. Some of the methods require preparation, and others can be used once your bottles have already reached the dreaded room temperature. Whichever method you choose, you’re guaranteed to get the chilled beer you need.
