There have been complaints from Rovers fans about the length of time it takes to buy a pint of beer at half time.  This has prompted the club to try a unique experiment.  Fans will be sold cups of chilled carbonated water containing powdered beer in a sachet. 

Tests have been carried out for many years on powdered beer.  The Japanese have even claimed to have produced powdered whisky.  But results have left a lot to be desired.  Many home-brewers will have tried the ‘Monk’ bag.  This was a plastic bag containing beer ingredients.  The idea behind this entailed water being added and the bag was hung on a wall.  Two weeks later, beer was available.  But the El Dorado of this was the idea of producing beer in two minutes, not two weeks.  This was because punters wanted to get stuck into their homebrew as fast as possible – usually with unwelcome results.

Another problem is alcohol.  This evaporates very quickly and may mean having to be added in a separate sachet.  Implications here could be serious, with fans keeping the sachets and playing pranks on their mates.  They might slip the sachet’s contents into their mate’s flasks when they were not looking.  But, on the bright side, it gives fans a choice whether to drink low-alcoholic beer or not and control the strength of the beer.  Very helpful to drivers.  Whereas booze drinkers could take the sachets home and do with them as they wished if they didn’t fancy a tipple at half time.

Many Rovers fans were brought up on half time drinks of flasks of tea, coffee or Oxo and Bovril as a respite from inclement weather.  These were very welcome in the cold winters.  This was despite comments at the time of how weak the drinks were when bought from the club’s vendors.  The cup’s contents looked like it had been scooped from the nearby River Darwen – whatever beverage it was supposed to be.  But it was quick to prepare and gave you a bit of warmth, albeit very briefly. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have thought about the length of time it takes to pour the cups of fizzy water, give out sachets, then stir in the powder.  Many fans say we might as well stick to the conventional tipple.  But you never know.  This could be no storm in a teacup for Rovers.  Not even a slight hiccup.