# A mole of beer - how big?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 24, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186 "2010-10-24T14:33:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/1 "2010-10-24T14:33:00Z")
I just heard from a friend that yesterday from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM was Mole Day, in honor of Avogadro’s Number (6.02 \* 10^23). Seeking any excuse to knock one back for nerdy reasons next year, I got to wondering how big a mole of beer would be. Considering it’s got all sorts of lovely complex molecules, I imagine it would be pretty big, but how big exactly? Within human capacity to consume in a 12-hour period?
---
### Author:  [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/2 "2010-10-24T14:42:59Z")
I guess it depends on which of those complex molecules you’re talking about; there are so many. I suppose you could determine the average mass of a molecule in beer (which is probably not that different from water, because beer is mostly water with a few impurities), then multiply that out to get the mass of the amount of beer, and then find the density of beer (which is probably that of water, more or less), and there you are. One mole of water is only about 18 grams, so I think we can safely figure that one mole of beer is less than one pint; even allowing for the average molar mass of beer to be as much as ten times that of water, we still get only 180 grams of beer, which is only about six ounces (mass), which is significantly less than one pint.
ETA: That’s lower than I would have guessed; I expected something like two sixpacks. Those molecules are little fuckers, aren’t they?
---
### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/3 "2010-10-24T15:02:37Z")
Surprisingly so. I was thinking certainly along the lines of mass quantities, not just a couple gulps.
---
### Author:  [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/4 "2010-10-24T15:05:56Z")
Yeah, me too. Sorry.
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/5 "2010-10-24T15:25:21Z")
Ah, but how big would a mole of **beers** be?
Assume a standing glass of beer is a pint, 16 fluid ounces. If I had 6.02 x 10^23 pints of Stella, just how much space do I need in my beer fridge?
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/6 "2010-10-24T15:42:36Z")
6.02E23 pints of beer is a cube ~4900 statute miles on a side.
Or a sphere of diameter ~9366 statute miles. For comparison, the Earth is about 7900 miles in diameter. So we’re talking a sphere not quite 20% larger in diameter than Earth.
---
### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/7 "2010-10-24T15:57:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Ah, but how big would a mole of **beers** be?
>
> Assume a standing glass of beer is a pint, 16 fluid ounces. If I had 6.02 x 10^23 pints of Stella, just how much space do I need in my beer fridge?
There’s your problem. A mole is the function that quantifies a mass noun to a count noun. A mole of salt water (sodium chloride in aqueous solution) is not 6.02_19^23 water molecules with a small fraction of the quantity being sodium and chloride ions, it’s 3.01_10^23 sodium ions and 3.01\*10^23 chloride ions in any quantity of water. That’s why the concentration in aqueous solutions is important.
One mole of beer would be N grams of the standard mixture of ethanol (ethyl alcohol) and hydrolyzed proteins that together in specified concentrations go to make up beer and distinguish it from lab-pure distilled water, in aqueous solution. As anyone who has imbibed a variety of beers knows, that concentration can be strong or weak.
You don’t get moles of discrete objects like mugs of beer, diamonds, or sheep; you get moles of _substances_ – either non-reactive elements like xenon or gold, compounds like ethyl alcohol or DNA, or mixtures like Jiffy Mix or Portland cement.
Mole theory says that a mole of a substance includes 6.02\*10^23 molecules of its constituent chemical(s), and constitutes N grams of the substance, where N is the relevant molecular weight of the constituent(s).
---
### Author:  [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/8 "2010-10-24T16:24:09Z")
A mole of ethanol is about 1.6 ounces. Ethanol is denser than water, so you could approximate it as two shots of 200 proof ethanol. That’s about four shots of normal alcohol, so a mole of beer defined by ethanol content would be about 4 beers more or less.
---
### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/9 "2010-10-24T16:56:45Z")
Chemists generally don’t think about moles of mixtures. It doesn’t really compute. I just care how many moles (usually micromoles in my case) of the individual reactive chemicals I have.
> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> A mole of salt water (sodium chloride in aqueous solution) is not 6.02_19^23 water molecules with a small fraction of the quantity being sodium and chloride ions, it’s 3.01_10^23 sodium ions and 3.01\*10^23 chloride ions in any quantity of water.
That’s half a mole of sodium chloride in water.
> [@](#):
>
> You don’t get moles of discrete objects like mugs of beer, diamonds, or sheep;
I don’t see why not. It conveys the point perfectly.
---
### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/10 "2010-10-24T17:59:00Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Ah, but how big would a mole of **beers** be?
>
> Assume a standing glass of beer is a pint, 16 fluid ounces. If I had 6.02 x 10^23 pints of Stella, just how much space do I need in my beer fridge?
Water is 18 mL, and Stella is close enough to that, so lets say 20 mL. 😃 You’d need a very, very small fridge. An ice cube with a hollow will work.
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/11 "2010-10-25T03:07:38Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> Water is 18 mL, and Stella is close enough to that, so lets say 20 mL. 😃 You’d need a very, very small fridge. An ice cube with a hollow will work.
6.02 x 10^23 **pints** can fit inside an ice cube?
A mole is a number. I wanted to know how much space sixty sextillion pints would occupy. I’m thirsty.
---
### Author:  [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/12 "2010-10-25T05:10:43Z")
> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> I just heard from a friend that yesterday from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM was Mole Day, in honor of Avogadro’s Number (6.02 \* 10^23).
Nerdiest. Day. Ever.
---
### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/13 "2010-10-25T08:08:08Z")
> [@Ruken](#):
>
> Chemists generally don’t think about moles of mixtures. It doesn’t really compute. I just care how many moles (usually micromoles in my case) of the individual reactive chemicals I have.
Thank you, it’s what I was about to say. You can’t have a mole of “salt water”: you can have a mole of NaCl(aq), but that’s not the same, among other things because “salt water” tells you even less about the concentration than “NaCl(aq)” (which, if nothing else is stated, is “neither saturated nor so diluted it won’t perform whatever task you want it to perform” - but the actual concentration is usually given).
You can’t have moles of wine, beer or sauerkraut but you can have a mole of cabbages, assuming you’re able to find that many cabbages. The reason we don’t normally talk about moles of cabbages, glasses, eggs, oranges or jars is that we simply never have large enough amounts that speaking in moles will give better information than speaking in units, thousands, dozens or grosses.
---
### Author:  [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/14 "2010-10-25T10:49:47Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#):
>
> Ethanol is denser than water.
umm.
No. water (1.00g/ml) is denser than ethanol (0.789g/ml)
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/15 "2010-10-25T12:21:57Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> 6.02 x 10^23 **pints** can fit inside an ice cube?
>
> A mole is a number. I wanted to know how much space sixty sextillion pints would occupy. I’m thirsty.
You did read post #6 didn’t you?
---
### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/16 "2010-10-25T13:48:02Z")
No. A mole is **not** a number. Avogadro’s Number is a number.
A mole is a parameter, in the strict pedantic definition of the word, a “variable constant” (which is not an oxymoron) which changes predictably according to the rule defining it.
A mole is a quantity of some given substance which masses, in grams, what the atomic weight of its constituent compound might be, or if a mixture, what the sum of the proportionate atomic weights of the compounds mixed to compose it might be.
A mole of anything contains a constant number of molecules – that constant being, of course, Avogadro’s number. “A mole of pints of beer” is as meaningless as “a single molecule of cake mix.”
---
### Author:  [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/17 "2010-10-25T13:52:21Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> 6.02E23 pints of beer is a cube ~4900 statute miles on a side.
>
> Or a sphere of diameter ~9366 statute miles. For comparison, the Earth is about 7900 miles in diameter. So we’re talking a sphere not quite 20% larger in diameter than Earth.
We’re gonna need a bigger fridge." - Sheriff Brody.
---
### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/18 "2010-10-25T14:29:36Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> 6.02E23 pints of beer is a cube ~4900 statute miles on a side.
>
> Or a sphere of diameter ~9366 statute miles. For comparison, the Earth is about 7900 miles in diameter. So we’re talking a sphere not quite 20% larger in diameter than Earth.
Ah, but that’s not going to be a large enough fridge for a mole of beers, because you need space for the bottles and the air between them. And some sort of racking or shelving so that the bottle layers don’t get crushed. Last thing we need is a planetary body of beer contaminated by a lot of glass shards!
---
### Author:  [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/19 "2010-10-25T15:07:36Z")
> [@Olentzero](#):
>
> I just heard from a friend that yesterday from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM was Mole Day, in honor of Avogadro’s Number (6.02 \* 10^23). Seeking any excuse to knock one back for nerdy reasons next year, I got to wondering how big a mole of beer would be. Considering it’s got all sorts of lovely complex molecules, I imagine it would be pretty big, but how big exactly? Within human capacity to consume in a 12-hour period?
Why yesterday? Why not June 2?
Joe
---
### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186/20 "2010-10-25T17:16:25Z")
> [@wheresgeorge04](#):
>
> Why yesterday? Why not June 2?
>
> Joe
6:02 on 10/23
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-mole-of-beer-how-big/558186.md?page=2)