A while ago, we got involved in a conversation on Twitter about how to put a head on flat beer.
You can buy a fancy-pants sonic foamer (they tried to send us a sample, it got impounded by Customs, we never retrieved it) but what lots of people recommended was a syringe. There’s more on how it works here but, basically, you squirt a mix of air and beer into the glass which introduces nitrogen into the mix like the widget in a can of Guinness.
We struggled to get hold of a syringe, though — for some reason, Penzance chemists look askance at you when you ask for one — and forgot about it. Then we realised that a testing kit we’d bought for home brewing came with a load of these small plastic pipettes:
As you can see, they turned out to be a pretty effective substitute (no sound):
It might seem a bit daft but it’s really handy when you’ve just slightly misjudged the pour, or had to leave a beer for 10 minutes to take a phone call or something.
We so often get served headless pints when we’re out and about but, realistically, we wouldn’t want to do this in the pub. You could, though, if you’re without shame, and it’s not as if the pipette weighs much.
Plus it is kind of fun: WHOOSH!