“UH OH!” - You.
“OH NO!” - Also you.
“AAAHHHH!” - You, again, because you have heard the terrifying news that the UK is officially running out of beer and fizzy drinks, thanks to a European CO2 shortage.
Basically, as you probably already know, CO2 is needed to make your drink fizzy - and who doesn’t love a fizzy drink when the sun is shining and the football is on? Nobody, that’s who not doesn’t like it, nope, not.
The reason behind this is that a series of ammonia plants have closed, and CO2 is a by-product of ammonia production. Some of these were planned shutdowns, which were accounted for - but the situation became ‘critical’ when others closed after suffering technical issues.
The fact that it’s the World Cup and beer-drinking is at an all-time high doesn’t exactly help things - it’ll speed up the drought, if anything. Industry publication Gasworld said:
“All major suppliers of liquid CO2 have been affected by the raw gas sourcing issues.”
At least one brewer has said beer production could cease as early as next week.
Sam Millard, from the London-based Beavertown Brewery, added:
“It’s going to affect everyone. We’re all very heavily reliant on CO2, not just as part of the brewing process but also as part of the packaging process.
“[The CO2 shortage] has hit at absolutely the wrong time of year – the height of summer and the World Cup is when people want to be down the pub, drinking beer, or they want to get cans to take home.
“We can modify our processes for this week which will see us through…but if it goes on any longer than that then we’ll just have to halt packaging.”
You’re gonna have to tone down this kind of behaviour, you flaming pack of lager-guzzling legends, you
There’s also a beer shortage over in Russia, too. But that has less to do with a CO2 shortage and more to do with the fact that there’s a load of English L.A.D.S pinning them out of all their pints, the radgies. Russians are far more keen on vodka, so stocking up on beer wasn’t a high priority and it’s rapidly running out. One Moscow waiter told Reuters:
“We just didn’t think they would only want beer.
“There are really a lot of people in Moscow…and they are all drinking.
“It’s hot, and it’s football.”
So what have we learned from this? Well, next time anyone chastises you for drinking a beer (if you can get hold of one, that is), simply look them dead in the eye and loudly say “It’s hot, and it’s football.”
(Images: Getty)
