Tested: what's the fastest way to chill your beer?
The TVs on, the snacks are out, you're ready for England's Euro 2024 final. Then you remember you forgot to chill the beer.
Fear not, we've tested eight popular methods and hacks (some of which other sources say work, but we've found they don't) and discovered the best way to get a refreshing beer chilled in less time than it takes to run to the corner shop and back to stock up on cold ones.
Below we reveal - in reverse order - the least to most effective ways we've discovered to chill a beer fast and avert a Euro 2024 final party disaster.
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Won't work for chilling your Euro 2024 beer
Bucket of cold water (no ice)
Filling a bucket with enough cold water to completely submerge a bottle for 30 minutes led to a measly 2.5°C temperature fall, and a lukewarm 18°C beer.
Not a great start.
Run the bottle under a cold tap for three minutes
You get identical results in only three minutes by running a bottle under a cold tap.
We recorded a 2.5°C temperature fall. However, you'll still be left with a lukewarm beer and it's also incredibly wasteful.
Best way to chill your beer (without ice)
Air cooling method
This method involves putting the bottle in a shallow bowl of cold water and covering it with a wet flannel.
Put the bowl in a breezy location and the idea is that the breeze evaporates the water from the towel and thus cools the bottle.
It's a bit of a faff. However, we found it's more effective than just cold water. This method dropped the temperature by 3.3°C in just 30 minutes.
It's also a useful method if you're caught outside without ice, a fridge or a freezer (unless you have access to a cool stream of course).
Put the bottle in the fridge
The bottom of the fridge is the coldest section, as cold air sinks (unless there is a freezer compartment at the top).
We put a bottle in the bottom of a fridge for 30 minutes and recorded the change in temperature.
The temperature dropped by an underwhelming 3.6°C, which is only a tiny bit better than the air cooling method above.
These chill beer fast, but we found faster
Cover the bottle with wet tissue paper and put it in the freezer
You might see hacks online swearing by this method. However, we found it didn't work as well as just putting the bottle in the freezer without wet tissue around it.
The wet tissue is really messy too.
Still it did drop the temperature of a beer by 11.6°C in just 30 minutes.
Put the bottle in the freezer
It's high-risk, especially if you've already had a few or get distracted by the Euros 2024 and leave them in there for too long. However, putting your beer in the freezer is a shortcut to cold beer that many people have taken.
And it works.
Just 30 minutes at the back of the middle drawer (the coldest part of the freezer), saw the temperature drop by an impressive 12.7°C leaving the beer very drinkable at just under 8°C. Overall, a great way to chill a beer fast.
Bucket of cold water with ice
We put 1kg of ice in a bucket and filled it with enough water to submerge the bottle.
The results were pretty spectacular, with the temperature of the beer dropping 16.6°C in just 30 minutes. Refreshing.
Overall fastest way to chill your beer
Bucket of cold water with ice and salt
Without a doubt, this is the most effective and fastest way to chill a beer.
It's also a useful hack to know for future hosting when your fridge and freezer are both already filled to bursting point and you need to cool down drinks fast.
We put 1kg of ice in a bucket with enough water to fully submerge a bottle, we then added 100g of salt.
In just half an hour, the temperature of the beer dropped by 18.9°C, leaving the beer at a chilled 1.6°C. After an hour, we managed to get the temperature of the beer down to a little less than 0°C with this method.
If you need to chill beers fast for the Euros, this is the way to do it.
No more room in your fridge for cold drinks? See which were the best cooler bags and best cool boxes at keeping drinks chilled for longer. And find out which electric cool boxes chilled by 17°C in just one hour once plugged in.
Why does adding salt chill drinks faster?
- Salt water has a lower freezing point than regular water.
- While the temperature of a bucket of ice and water might hover around - or slightly above - 0°C, adding salt will mean that the temperature of the icy slushy solution can actually be less than zero.
- These sub-zero temperatures will chill your beer faster and ultimately leave it colder.
How we found the best chilling method
At Which? we don't believe in doing things by halves.
Our product reviews are based on intensive tests that take time to conduct.
Before we publish a fridge-freezer review, for example, we put fridge freezers through more than 50 individual tests to assess which are the best and worst.
While there's less at stake trying to bring a drink to temperature than when buying your next big appliance, rest assured that, like all testing at Which?, the chilling results in the table below are accurate, robust and repeatable.
We used bottled beer for our test, but you should see the same methods work best with other bottled drinks and cans.
| Chilling technique | Start temperature (°C) | End temperature (°C) | Temperature change (°C) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control: Temperature of a bottle of beer just left on the side throughout the experiment. | 20.5 | 21 | 0.5 |
| 8. Three minutes under a cold tap, twisting the bottle. | 20.5 | 18 | -2.5 |
| 7. Bucket of cold tap water. | 20.5 | 18 | -2.5 |
| 6. Bowl of cold water, covered over with a wet flannel, left in a breezy location. | 20.5 | 17.2 | -3.3 |
| 5. Bottom shelf of the fridge. | 20.5 | 16.9 | -3.6 |
| 4. Cover bottle with wet tissue paper and put in the middle of a freezer. | 20.5 | 8.9 | -11.6 |
| 3. Bottle in the middle shelf of a freezer. | 20.5 | 7.8 | -12.7 |
Room temperature during the experiment: 22.5°C. Not a drop of beer was wasted during testing.
Find out more about how Which? isn't influenced by product manufacturers or retailers and how your support helps us to stay editorially independent.
How cold should you serve your drinks?
Coldest doesn't always mean best. Below are some serving suggestions for popular beverages.
- Standard lager 5-8°C
- 'Extra cold' lagers 0-5°C
- Cask ales 11-13°C
- Prosecco 6-8°C
- Champagne 8-10°C
- White wine 8-12°C
- Red wine 12-18°C
- Dessert wine 5-7°C
Our fridge reviews and wine cooler reviews reveal the appliances that, as well as excelling at chilling, keep your drinks at a steady temperature, even if the temperature in the room fluctuates.
More from us to get your Euro 2024 final party started: Our pick of the best cheap supermarket food and drink and the best SodaStreams.
