Space Beer Attempt from Japan

Sapporo Breweries, one of the most ancient beer producing companies in Japan, apparently said "why not?" to the concept of space beer. Since they have so much history, background, experience and success supporting them, the company's officials were likely to extend their views on their main product. But space beer is not actually entirely made in space, as only the barley it's made from is grown there.

A successful collaboration between Sapporo Breweries, the Russian Academy of Science and the Japanese Okayama University has managed to place some barley aboard the International Space Station for cultivation purposes, as part of a program that tests food cultivation in space. But it seems that, besides demonstrating that it can be done, and that man takes alcohol wherever he goes, the space barley beer doesn't have much other appeal to it.

 

Some 100 liters of space beer will be obtained, and only 60 people will get the chance to test it in January 2009, by winning the company's contest, as commercial availability is not an option yet. The availability is strictly limited by a few but very important factors. Mainly, there's the fact that space beer and normal barley beer taste exactly the same, and secondly, it costs much, much more, so, there's no use making it out there.

 

You may think that astronauts could use it during their long nights of solitude, but you would be wrong. Carbonated (bubbly) beverages are best reserved for 1G gravity (Earth), since in zero gravity, the bubbles don't rise and float, but stay suspended in the liquid. Similarly, beer is hard to swallow, and even harder to keep swallowed. Most likely, a "wet burp" will spread the beer around the room.

 

So, besides the fact that it proves a colony can self-sustain by growing the stuff needed, and apart from its novelty factor, space beer is a project only to be kept for the time we can afford implementing artificial gravity and having enough energy to build and maintain small breweries on the station/colony.