“Fizzics” of Bubble Growth in Beer and Champagne

Although beer and champagne are mostly enjoyed at leisure, the myriad physical and chemical processes in them are challenging. Furthermore, studying these processes sheds light on explosive volcanic and lake eruptions because bubble growth is a process common to all of them. We model the growth rate of rising bubbles in beer and champagne. Due to different initial gas concentrations, the eruption velocity of champagne is two orders of magnitude higher than that of CO2-based beer. In N2-based Guinness beer, bubble growth is slow, leading to smaller bubbles that can be entrained by downward flow; these are often seen as sinking bubbles