You might have seen on the Internet a series of “life hacks” – a set of tips designed to make things easier. One of them aims to help you chill a beer really fast. You wrap the beer in paper towels, wet the towels and put it in the freezer. Between 10-12 minutes later it’s chilled and ready for drinking.

But does it really work? Let’s find out right here with this ultra-scientific (maybe) experiment.

The hypothesis: That a beer will chill faster in the freezer if you wrap it in wet paper towels and put it in the freezer for a short period of time.

The experiment: We take two bottles of Bridge Road Brewers Galaxy IPA (chosen because it’s ultra-tasty). One of them is left au naturale. The other is wrapped in three linked sheets of paper towel, and then drenched under the cold water tap.

Both beers are then placed in the same freezer for a period of 12 minutes. After that time is up, both beers are opened and temperatures taken with a thermometer (derr, like there would be something else I would take the temperature with).

The result: After 12 minutes the paper towel beer did feel colder to the touch when I took them out. As for temperature, the paper towel beer came in at 18 degrees Celsius. And the naked beer? Ummm, 18 degrees as well.

Conclusion: This life hack is utter bullshit. Paper towels make no difference at all. I had to put both opened Bridge Road Galaxy IPAs in the fridge to cool down to drinking temperature. And had to wait while that happened.