BEER SPECIAL ...................9 Excellent Uses for Beer Around the House

9 Excellent Uses for Beer Around the House

Here are 9 clever and surprising uses for beer for you to try...

1. Trap Slugs
If you are tired of slugs munching their way through your precious plants, then place some dishes or jars of beer around corners of the garden. Slugs absolutely love it, but once inside your trap, they can't get back out so they will either drown or remain there until you deal with them in the morning. The beer can be re-used until it evaporates.

2. Give Your Hair Some Bounce

Beer makes for a great shampoo-conditioner that can add life to tired, matted hair. The vitamins and minerals in beer help infuse strands with helpful nutrients, while the alcohol performs well as a clarifying agent, and the acidic properties add an extra dose of shine. This three pronged attack system will leave your hair shiny and revived (there are actually beer based shampoos on the market). 

3. Give Wooden Furniture a Spruce

If you have a few half empty beer bottles left over after a party, use the dregs to revive wooden furniture. You should only use flat, leftover beer for this job, and apply it using a microfiber cloth. It will add color and polish to lifeless furniture.

4. Distract Bees and Wasps

Anyone who has drank beer outside will know that wasps and bees descend on any abandoned dregs very quickly. Use this to your advantage at a garden party by placing some glasses with small amounts of beer left in them away from your guests to keep the wasps away. You can even use this to trap them, as well as other flying pests like fruit flies and mosquitoes (amber beer is best for the latter).

5. Polish Your Pots

In the past, breweries used beer dregs to clean copper vats, and for good reason. Again, the gentle acidity of beer makes it great for this job - it will shine up pots without staining the metal. Try buffing a small area of the pot using beer dabbed on a cloth, and see how much of a difference it makes.

6. Fertilize Your Garden and Pot Plants

Your garden will love the yeasts and sugars that are found in beer, so you can use half-finished leftovers to make great fertilizers for your grass, vegetable patches and flower beds. This is a great way to treat brown spots on your lawn or you can use it in plant pots to encourage your indoor plants to grow more quickly.

7. Ease a Minor Tummy Ache

This is not as crazy as it sounds, but slowly sipping on a beer can ease minor stomach upsets because the carbonation and sugars can banish tummy rumbles. Of course it should only be used on random upsets, not on ulcers or serious stomach complaints (or by children)!

8. Loosen Rusty Bolts

Rust is an enemy of us all and can cause metal fasteners to become permanently fixed to their host hardware. If you've ever tried to wrench out a bolt that is stuck firmly in place, you will be glad for some help, and here's where a splash of beer can come in handy. Apply it, leave it for a few minutes to allow the carbonation to break down the rust and then try and remove the screw again. 

9. Spice Your Rice!

If you haven't tried beer soaked rice, then you have missed out on a tasty treat! Add something extra to your standard long grain, jasmine or basmati rice by cooking it in a dark beer. The rice absorbs the beer and produces a lovely flavor.