Socializing in the time of Covid is awkward enough. Avoid doom, gloom, and weather-related commentary with some of our favorite conversation starters. Whether you’re having drinks over Zoom or sipping from 6 feet away, we’ll help you get happy hour started right.

Every summer crowds of people toting coolers of beer head outdoors for days on the lake, at the beach, and in the pool. Faced with the sweltering heat, they reach for a koozie to keep their drinks cool. But does the foam sleeve actually work? Back in 2009, the U.S. government set out to answer that very question.

After spending $1.3 million, researchers from the University of Washington — using grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) — concluded: Yes, a koozie is a viable drink insulator.

Turns out, however, that the success of a koozie has less to do with insulating and more to do with preventing condensation. According to the study released in 2013, humidity, not high temperatures, is the more important factor when it comes to the rate at which a can warms up.

During humid weather, cans heat two times faster than on a drier day because of the amount of condensation that forms on their exterior. On a typical New Orleans summer day, for example, the heat released from each droplet can increase the content’s temperature by six degrees in just five minutes.

“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,” said Dale Durran, lead researcher and professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.

The study first gained attention after the release of former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake’s 2015 book “Wastebook: The Farce Awakens,” which outlines numerous accounts of egregious government spending. The NSF was not happy with Flake’s claims and responded with its own 18-page outline of the spendings.

“This research was not about keeping drinks cool,” according to the document. “The ‘cold drink can’ paper referred to in the ‘wastebook’ concerned a visual, hands-on experiment a team of researchers designed to demonstrate a complex weather phenomenon to students and the general public. The majority of the NSF project in question went into cutting-edge weather research.”

Whatever the reason, grab a beer koozie, because it really can keep your drink cooler in the summer months.