Norwegians plumb in beer-dispensing kitchen sink

Turn water into ale

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 14th March 2006 17:07 GMT

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It's every right-minded Englishman's dream: you've been dispatched to the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon - protesting pathetically against your other half's (absolutely correct and justified) assertion that you're "not going down the bloody pub until you've done the washing-up" - but when you half-heartedly stick a mug under the tap to purge the encrusted mould from the bottom it's not water that issues forth, but beer.

Now, it's at this point that you'll be thinking: "The poor boy has spent so long shackled to his PC [five hours so far today, for pity's sake] that he's gone completely doolally tap due no doubt to prolonged lack of foaming ale."

No so, because the above delightful scenario is precisely what happened to Haldis Gundersen in her apartment in Kristiansund, west Norway, viz: she arrived at the sink to find the taps dispensing beer.

Gundersen told Reuters: "I turned on the tap to clean some knives and forks, and beer came out. We thought we were in heaven." Indeed, although disappointingly, Gundersen noted the beer was "flat and tasted odd".

The cause of the Kristiansund Beer Miracle was soon pinpointed when, downstairs at the Big Tower Bar, the pumps started to offer nothing more than water. An investigation showed that Gundersen's water supply and the bar's vital beer conduit had been accidently cross-connected.

Per Egil Myrvang from the local beer distributor explained: "The water and beer pipes do touch each other, but you have to be really creative to connect them together."

The "problem" was quickly rectified, with Gundersen quipping: "If it happens again, I'm going to order Baileys." ®