# Bottled Beer, Foams Over, What's It Called?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bottled-beer-foams-over-whats-it-called/355148>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 2, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bottled-beer-foams-over-whats-it-called/355148 "2006-05-02T20:19:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cordial\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/94ad74/32.png) [@Cordial\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cordial_Jim)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bottled-beer-foams-over-whats-it-called/355148/1 "2006-05-02T20:19:36Z")

</div>

There may not even be a word for this, but I have a foggy recollection that says yes.

You take a rather large sip from a newly opened bottle of beer and quickly return the bottle to a hard surface. Within seconds, a large amount of frothy, hopsy, foam spews up and out of the bottle and onto said hard surface.

There is a word for this, I just know it. What is it?

Relatedly, what causes this? It doesn’t happen all the time, no matter how quickly the bottle is lowered from the mouth and onto a hard surface. If I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with the amount of air released or injected into the bottle during intake, but I really don’t know.

Thanks

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bottled-beer-foams-over-whats-it-called/355148/2 "2006-05-02T21:19:16Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=Cordial Jim]  
There is a word for this, I just know it. What is it?

[/QUOTE]

Around these parts we call this “Awshithoneygetmeatowel”. The accent is on the “awshit” part.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cardsfan1975](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f9b8f/32.png) [@cardsfan1975](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cardsfan1975)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bottled-beer-foams-over-whats-it-called/355148/3 "2006-05-02T21:30:27Z")

</div>

I don’t know of one word for that, but the two words that come to my mind are “alcohol abuse”. 😃

cf’75

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\
**Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bottled-beer-foams-over-whats-it-called/355148/4 "2006-05-02T21:47:47Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=Cordial Jim]  
Bottled Beer, Foams Over, What’s It Called?

There may not even be a word for this, but I have a foggy recollection that says yes.  
[/QUOTE]

**Wild Beer**.  
Carlsberg did a pile of research on the phenomena back in the 50’s; even going so far as to compose a periodic table of the effects of the chemical elements on beer foaming. That table doesn’t seem to be online, but there is a [passing ref to the research](http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:5zzgs2VSEW0J:www.bintproject.nl/textfiles/cartels.pdf+%22wild+beer%22+carlsberg&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a):

> [@](#):
>
> In 1955 Carlsbergs engineers found the cause for the problems with so-called **wild beer** and at the same time a new and strong manager A.W. Nielsen was appointed.

[The term is now used more widely](http://hbd.org/clubs/franklin/public_html/docs/balance.html) than just refering foaming from newly opened bottles:

> [@](#):
>
> Wild beer is a beer that is all or mostly foam when it is drawn.