As a
home-brewer, I'd like to point out that highly
carbonated beer is not necessary. (The
beer will naturally have some
CO2 dissolved in it, since the
yeast produce it as a
by-product of
fermentation.) It'll
taste flat, but the
alcohol content will be the same. Maybe there's a way to get the flavor of
carbonic acid into the
beer without the
bubbles(?).
Beer is often
carbonated in the
bottle/
keg by adding a small amount of
sugar before bottling/kegging. The resulting additional
fermentation creates the
CO2 which
diffuses into the beer. Other beers are
force carbonated by forcing
CO2 into the
keg and agitating the liquid.
Forced carbonation is faster (usually a few
days, depending on the
partial pressure of the
CO2 and
tempurature of the
liquid), but maybe it doesn't
taste as good (?). I personally don't mind.