I stumbled on this list of “10 Unexpected Uses for Beer” on the website Gomestic, which as far as I can tell looks like it’s about home and garden issues and related things. It was written by 131242313424, who apparently didn’t get the memo about being a free man and not a number (bonus points if you get that reference). We often hear lots of different things that can be done with beer besides its intended purpose from soup to nuts.
Despite its name, the ten on Gomestic’s list are hardly what I’d call “unexpected” unless you’re one of those people A.E. Housman was talking about when he alluded to “fellows whom it hurts to think.” Apparently it was hard for 131242313424 to stay focused on his theme of the uses being novel because number ten is “drink it,” which has to be the most expected use for beer one could imagine. But usual curmudgeonly grumbles aside, it got me thinking. There are plenty of other uses for beer, expected and unexpected, other than just drinking it. Some make sense and seem obvious, like using it to marinate meat with. Others seem less so, like using it to help dry patches on your lawn grow green again. But let’s start a list, shall we? What other uses for beer have you come across that you could recommend? To get you started, here are the ten from Gomestic and Men’s Health had a list of 33 back in March.
- Marinate meat in it
- Help grass grow easier
- Kill slugs & snails
- Kill mice
- Calm a stomach-ache
- Polish gold
- Bathe in it
- Polish wood furniture
- Cook with it
- Drink it!
I’ll begin compiling my list on a page I’ll call Beer’s Other Uses.
Mark, Seattle WA says
The Prisoner!
Where can I spend my bonus points? 🙂
One fun use for mega-swill is to use it in place of sterilized water for rinsing equipment when homebrewing. In other words, sacrifice the BudMillOors to the beer gods in hopes that they might bless the homebrew currently in production. (this is because canned/bottled megaswill can be expected to be sterile)