Perhaps you heard it on Facebook and are looking to try and find where you can buy some, or maybe you just watched a viral video and think it’s too good to be true. The truth of the matter is that helium beer makes it rounds a couple of times a year, and every time it’s nothing more than an amusing hoax.
Commercial brewers and homebrewers alike employ experimental and traditional brewing techniques to get their craft beer just right. One of those techniques is Krausening, a traditional German approach that eschews adding any sugars or extras to the fermented beer, with the goal of producing a "cleaner" beer. In summary, and ultimate effect, to kräusen a beer is to add carbonation to it.
The International Bitterness Units or IBU is one way to measure how a beer tastes in terms of bitterness. While the bitterness of beer plays a significant role in a flavor profile, it is only one of many factors. Alcohol content, malt and water quality, yeast fermentation byproducts, bacteria, and aeration also affect a particular beer's taste profile.
