Beer Koozies Are More Than Just A Gimmicky Accessory

My buddy Tony had a huge collection of beer koozies, and over time (and beers), some of them ended up with me. I added them to my own collection that includes a personalized one from a friend's wedding in New Orleans, one from an oyster festival in Boston, and various others from bars I barely remember. That's the thing with koozies — they tend to just show up in your life. Growing up in Louisiana, where it's often hot and muggy, that seemed especially true.

The primary role of a koozie, besides being a nice memento, is to keep your beer cold. And as the late great food writer and chef Anthony Bourdain said back in 2016 in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) when deriding beer snobs, ultimately, it's the beer's temperature that really counts. "I mean, I like a good craft, but don't make me feel bad about my beer choices," he wrote. "You know what kind of beer I like? I like cold beer." Agreed. Thankfully, the koozie is scientifically proven to keep your beer colder.

That's right, someone did the research. When warm air hits a cold beer, the air reaches its dew point and condenses. According to Dale Durran, a University of Washingtom professor of atmospheric sciences, in hot and muggy weather, the condensation releases heat that quickly warms the beer inside the can. He and another atmospheric scientist, Dargan Frierson, co-authored a paper on the subject called "Condensation, atmospheric motion, and cold beer."

It only takes a thin film of water on the can's surface to quickly increase its temperature by several degrees fahrenheit, leading to a less-than-appetizing beer situation. For instance, on a summer day in New Orleans, Durran says the heat from condensation can raise the temperature of the beer by 6 degrees Fahrenheit in only five minutes. That's where the koozie comes in. "Probably the most important thing a beer koozie does is not simply insulate the can, but keep condensation from forming on the outside of it," he said in a 2013 UW press release. So now that we know the koozie works, we're left wondering who came up with the idea in the first place.

The first canned beer appeared in 1935 after decades of folks trying to perfect a metal container that could withstand the pressure of the carbonated beverage and not ruin its taste. But it wasn't until sometime in the 1970s that someone came up with a product that prevented canned or bottled beer from getting warm too quickly. While we know the first versions of the foam sleeve came from Australia, there are several people credited with its creation, including an inventor named Alex Lang who designed the "stubby holder." For those who don't know, a stubby is a shorter, stubbier 12-ounce bottle of beer.

Then, in 1980, American inventor Bonnie McGough patented a collapsible "insulated beverage cozy for use with cold drinking utensils such as a twelve ounce beverage can" that was cushioned with goose down. Around this same time, an unsung construction worker in Texas discovered that the insulation tubing he was working with was the perfect shape to keep his canned drinks cold and named his new idea "the koozie." The Radio Cap Corporation bought the idea and the name, and the Koozie was officially born. Yes, like Band-Aid, Kleenex, and even the Dumpster, the Koozie is a trademarked name that has become a generic term. So whatever you call your insulated drink holder, just know it's scientifically proven to keep your beer cold, and it went through many iterations and names before making it onto your beer.