>> What probably happened is the beer got between the rear polariser and the 
>> backlight, there is usually a 100-500 micron air-gap that could easily 
>> fill with liquid.  Any contamination in this area will show up very 
>> obviously on the screen.
> Well, I'm hoping that my overkill sloshing of ethanol is the main culprit 
> here, and that most of it will evaporate eventually.

It may be a residue of ethanol on the rear polariser, you could try and put 
a few drops on the front of the screen and see if you can see anything once 
it has dried off.  Polarisers are funny things and react weirdly sometimes 
to certain chemicals.

Turn on the screen anyway, it will generate a load of heat which will help 
dry out any left-over moisture.

>> Cleaning it out will be hard, if you're lucky you could remove the actual 
>> display panel from the backlight without too much effort (sometimes they 
>> are stuck down with almost super-glue like adhesives!).
> It doesn't look human-dismantle-able, I couldn't see any more screws than 
> those that hold it to the plastic case.

Yeh, they are not really designed to be taken apart once assembled.  A lot 
of the components are stuck down and "snapped in" rather than screwed.  If 
you don't know the details about the exact model you could easily end up 
breaking something.

> Are they very delicate?

The panel will be made from two sheets of glass stuck together around the 
edge, each sheet of glass is probably between 0.3 and 0.7 mm.  The only real 
weak point is around the edge where there is no polariser attached to 
strengthen the glass - it is really easy to chip or snap off a corner or 
edge of the glass here, especially as this is usually where it is stuck down 
to the backlight.  Once you do that it's the end, because there are 
electrical connections and circuits all around the edge of the glass.

> The real problem is if the films are held together by decent adhesive I 
> might break something just taking it apart. This will be a worst-case 
> last-ditch option I think!

The films aren't usually held together by anything, they just sit in there 
and are constrained from moving by all the other components.  Once you get 
the panel itself off, the films should just lift out one by one (maybe they 
have a small dab of adhesive in one corner to help keep them in position).

The hardest bit is the glue around the outside of the panel that holds it to 
the backlight.  Maybe you have some chemical that can dissolve this 
adhesive, or just go around the outside carefully with a knife (if 
accessible).  Don't put any force on the edge of the glass though, it's the 
weakest point and will chip easily.

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