While beer and wine seldom lasts long in my household, from time to time there is the odd can or bottle left over after a party. When this rare event occurs, the leftovers can be put to use in a huge variety of ways – many of which most people would never think of. This list should help you use up your leftover beer. If you have any other tips for leftover beer, be sure to tell us in the comments.
Beer is an excellent skin conditioner. Next time you want to have a long soak in the bath, tip in a good can of dark beer before you hop in and just soak in it! This is a nice alternative to adding salt crystals (which soften water), but I see no reason that you couldn’t combine both for a super luxurious bath. Just don’t be tempted to drink the bathwater! Oh – and be careful if you go outside afterwards on a hot day (see item 4).
This is my favorite item on the list. If you have a stomach upset, slowly sipping a can of beer can help to settle it down – and the alcohol has an anesthetic effect which helps to alleviate the pain. As most of us will know, this is also a very effective hangover cure! Just be sure not to use this trick if you have an ulcer or gastritis.
Beer is a surprisingly good wood furniture polish. Let a can of beer go completely stale and flat and pour a little onto a polishing cloth. Buff your timber furniture and follow up with a final dry buff. You will be amazed at how brilliant and shiny your furniture will end up looking.
Beer makes an excellent marinade. It really doesn’t matter what meat you are preparing – it will benefit almost all types from a few hours (the longer the better) in a marinade of beer. You can get really adventurous too – add any flavors you like to the beer – even things like marmalade or jam. A more common addition would be soy sauce or other Asian sauces. If you are marinating pork, you might want to add some chunks of pineapple and pineapple juice with some ginger for a sweet and sour result.
Slugs are a terrible pest in a garden – particularly if you are growing for eating. Instead of using chemicals like DDT on your veges, bury a small saucer up to its lip in the garden and put fresh beer in it each day. The slugs will be attracted to the smell, get drunk and drown. Be sure to refresh the beer daily. With a little luck you should have a saucer full of slugs and healthy looking cabbages!
The yeast and other extracts in a can of beer are very good for plants. If you end up with a pile of left-over half-drunk cans or bottles of beer, tip them out onto the garden. Just watch out for cigarette butts if your guests use them for ashtrays – while some plants do like nicotine extract, not all do and you could kill your prize plants.
Bees and wasps are attracted to beer – so instead of spending a fortune on citronella oils or candles, try putting a few open beer cans around the yard at your next BBQ. Obviously you should put the cans away from where people will be sitting or standing. Oh – and make sure no one decides to have a swig from one of the cans when they are drunk – it will result in a very unpleasant (and potentially lethal) situation!
Beer “shampoo” can add luster and body to dull limp hair. It is also a much more natural alternative to store-bought shampoos which contain a lot of chemicals. Just mix one can of beer with a raw egg and use it as you would use a normal shampoo. It was quite common in days gone by to use raw eggs for shampoo – it even lathers up like the chemical stuff. Try it – I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised. Just keep in mind that the shampoo will go off if you don’t use it within a couple of days. This is probably best as a once-a-month special treatment. You can also use beer on its own as a conditioner – rinse your hair with it, let it dry off, then rinse it off.
When making a batter, you often add a little raising agent – usually baking powder. In this recipe, you use beer – the bubbles in the drink and the yeast provide the raising. So, here is the recipe: put 1.5 cups of flour and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt in to a bowl. Pour in 1 12oz can of beer while mixing. That is it! If the batter is too thick, add more beer. If it is too thin, add a little more flour. If you are planning to use this batter with fish, dredge the fish in flour first – remembering to shake off the excess. This is a great tasting batter that I use all the time.
This has to be one of the easiest recipes around. You simply take a full opened can of beer, stand a chicken on it, and throw it on the barbeque (well – don’t literally throw it – that could be very messy!) The beer can is inserted in the neck area (where you would normally stuff the chicken) and stood upright. While the chicken cooks, the beer heats up and subtly flavors the meat. You end up with a tasty and surprisingly moist chicken. You should also rub a little olive oil over the chicken and salt and pepper it before starting. If you have a favorite “rub” you can add that too. Oh – make sure you drink half of the can first – it should be half full when starting out. I am sure you will have no trouble finding someone to help you with that part of the recipe. Cook the chicken with the BBQ lid on for approximately 1 1/4 hours or until the internal temperature registers 165 degrees F in the breast area and 180 degrees F in the thigh (or the juices run clear if you pierce it with a knife).
Contributor: JFrater
I, being a 13 year old, have once drunken a cup of beer thinking that it was tea, and spat it out! I dont want to try anything with it…;(
Pansy!
Oh please. Beer is an acquired taste and some people just don’t like it.
All alcohols are acquired tastes. Don’t fling names around just because someone doesn’t like beer.
I make beer bread with leftover beer. I use 3 cups of self-rising flour, 1/4 cup of sugar and a 12 oz can of beer. Cook it for an hour at 375. Yummy!! My Nanny told me about the roasting the chicken with a can of beer but I have yet to try it. I bet it is tasty!
Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 5:26 amThis one looks good and I will dfetniiely try it. Thanks for sharing. Reply
I’m gonna try number 1 today!
I’ll drink to this list.
wouldn’t the chicken tastes like beer if you do number 1?
#1 : yummyyy..hmm//
cool list again jfrat! ü
very informative list.
very informative list. I would love to try number 3.:)
This list is incredible, i almost don’t believe half the stuff on there!
Like i’ve always said, beer is awesome
Putting beer on myself? that sounds like something you normally avoid at a party.
And if you really want to be natural, just rinsing your hair vigorously every day or so often is the most natural way to have full-bodied hair. Bear in mind, hair is not a living, and you can’t actually make it thicker without adding something onto it. That’s exactly like rubbing something onto a skyscraper and hoping it’ll grow and extra few floors and widen a bit.
I immediately thought of using it on hair when I saw what the list was about.
My grandmother always had an open can in her fridge for rinsing her hair. Flat beer used after you shampoo and condition leaves your hair very shiny and easier to style.
I don’t know about bathing in it though, a little on your hair makes you smell bad enough, I can’t imagine how strong it would be after a soak.
Don’t get pulled over!
I have rinsed my hair with beer and it really does make it super shiny!
On point number 1, the image shows that the beer can goes up the ass of the chicken and not the neck area. Hmmm?
Poor slugs
but at least they die happy. Beer batter is disgusting!! I had it once on holiday – prawns in beer batter and it was horrible. I had to pick all the batter off before I could eat the prawns.
Totally washing my hair with beer now.
I just did #9 to cure my upset tummy, caused by drinking too many beers last night!
…just kidding…
Clean your BBQ.
I don’t understand “leftover” and “beer” in the same sentence!
LOL….love number 1. Gonna need to remember that one.
yeah, i agree with cloud, those picks show the beer in the chicken’s butt and not its neck. Either way…..i still haven’t tried that(mostly due to the fact that everytime i buy beer for the chicken, my fiancee drinks it all before i can start dinner)
Great list.
*cheers*
Very informative list. I actually use #3
I used to work for a ritzy country club. One year we got a really bad slug problem. Call the exterminator? Nope that would disrupt the guests. we took some Crisco lids and placed them around the gardens and top them off with beer. Every morning before the guests started getting out of bed, I had the job of going through the gardens and disposing the dead slugs and resetting the “traps”. Yes I enjoyed running around the gardens drinking… errrr… pouring beer in solitude.
I wouldn’t call 2 unusal, its the second most common use for beer in my house (with the first being drinking it)
Just be careful with beer batters, don’t use the last bottle of really nice beer on it, makes people annoyed
Re #1: While the picture shows the chicken “right side up”, turning it “upside down” per JFrater’s instructions will help the white meat be more tender and juicy and less dry. I roast my chickens on an incline in the oven with the torso on the down slope and the legs up. Yummy. The beer can also works well with a turkey, especially in a smoker!
Man, I love beer…
hahahahaha comment 2 i drunken a beer ahaha
very informative list
Down South, people make “beer in the rear” chicken. The can is stuffed into the chicken cavity and cooked upright.
jayfray: i know this might offend, but i’m gonna have to agree with nyys at #2. i just don’t like beer. i have tried all sorts on my own and had many a friend telling me that i just haven’t tried their favorite. tried it also and didn’t like it.
they tell me i just need to keep drinking and i will “acquire” the taste. possibly, but why would i intentionally drink so much of something that my bodies natural reaction, being “yuk”, would be deadened?
this might upset a whole other section of people, but i have the same problem with coffee.
*ducks head*
Usually if I drink enough to have a hangover, the last thing I want to see or think about is having another beer…
Number one, on the other hand, is genius. There is a “Pub” (its actually a very American sports bar that specializes in college drinking) near my campus that specializes in their “World Famous Drunken Chicken”. It is made more or less the same way as described in number one, and it is amazing.
mythbusters looked at the “have a beer to help a hangover” idea. they concluded it will temporarily help the symptoms but actually leaves you worse off than before.
sorry for the double post.
the best solution, as far as quickly snapping out of the haze and restoring cognitive abilities is to take a good solid slap to the face.
#1 Drunken Chicken…. we do that all the time in the south. We’ve even constructed special stands for it! Very good eating!!!
awesome list. beer is good
I don’t really like beer, but my dad taught me that the best use for beer is to cook hot dogs. Gotta love beer dogs!
I LOVE beer chicken. I was hoping it would be on here.
I don’t think I could get past the smell of bathing/washing my hair with it though..I feel like I’d smell like old bar.
Plus…maybe this is just me, but I’ve had one too many night where beer was the CAUSE of an upset stomach to drink it when I have one
DiscHuker, I’m totally with you with not liking beer. It just tastes bad to me. I don’t see why people would be offended by your tastebuds.
DiscHuker, you whine like a 10 year old kid, grow up
You should probably stipulate that you use Beer, and not Lager for the recipe/cooking uses.
I don’t understand this list. I agree with astraya, there’s never any leftover beer at my house.
Also, make a Béchamel sauce (butter, flour and milk) and add grated cheddar, Worcestershire sauce and Beer/Ale for a classic Welsh Rarebit!
I have to say that I don’t care for the taste of beer, at least not the cheap stuff. I prefer, when indulging in alchohol, wine or vodka rather than beer. Beer is, for the most part cheaper, but give me grapes to hops and barley anyday. On to the list though, I found these all entertaining and I want to try to make my own shampoos out of egg now, since my household is chock full of eggs at any given moment, and shampoos cn be ridiculously foul (i have often heard it said that you should only put on your body what you would be willing put to into it,and this seems like a good way to live that mantra.)
I don’t live in the south but I have seen, during barbeque season, up the rear beer chicken stands for cook outs. i am yet to try it, but I imagine that it is very yummy.
Since I plan on starting a garden when I get older, (have my own house, that whole deal, since I am a lowly college student.) using beer to kill slugs seems like a delightful idea, another way to try and keep your overall envirnment healthy and away from man made toxins.
Bees being attracted to beer has had interesting consequences for my family, too many to truly note on the site, but needless to say that they are often amusing.
On Brainiac I remember them proving that the most effectinve way to become enebriated without drinking was soaking in nothing but beer, but I imagine soaking in a bath solution of one can beer to a couple gallons water would produce no problems with the law.
that is all for today,
the cloaked schemer
Well, I dont drink beer, but somebody has to say it.
To alcohol, the cause of—and solution to—all life’s problems.
Number one is amazing, I’m not a big chicken fan but roasted BBQ chicken on an open beer can tastes amazing
It also tastes great in marinades and fish and chip batter. My mom always boils her ribs in beer for a few minutes before BBqing them, delicious!
And to those who’re worried about your food tasting like beer, it doesn’t, the alcohol burns off when cooking. We don’t even drink alcohol in our house so you can trust me on that
My Dad also taught me the beer marinade… Pour some on/in the hamburgers, some in your mouth, some on the burgers, some in your mouth. It was a good recipe.
Oh, and the burgers were delicious!
#1 is fairly common here, and it’s delicious!!!
Ah yes, beer can chicken. Also known as “Bachelor’s BBQ Delight.” Haven’t tried it with turkey, though.
I remember, as a teen, using the beer/egg hair conditioner trick. It worked remarkably well until my dad found me sneaking his beer out of the fridge!
Oh well.
I can vouch for the beer marinade, and the beer batter, both have a definite place in certain types of cooking.
The slug killing qualities of beer, while grim and unsettling, are useful and, since we live in the woods, we will not use chemical’s to rid our gardens of pests. I noticed the plants above the saucer of beer were Nasturtiums. They are an extremely useful plant! Both the leaves and the flowers are edible (and very tasty!), and deer (of which we have many) love them. I surround all of my gardens with deep borders of Nasturtiums because the deer will stop to graze on them, rather than going on to graze on whatever else is in the garden.
Then you can sit back, drinking your beer, watching the deer eating the Nasturtiums, and everybody’s happy (except, maybe, the slugs).
That woman in the picture for number 10 stole my beer! Give me back my beer woman! Who told you it was okay to bathe in my beer? That’s my beer woman! Don’t make me come in there and take back my beer! Don’t make me do it!
This isn’t funny! stop smiling! That’s MY beer!
Watch out! Here I come! I say watch out woman! Here I come to take back my beer!
splash
glug glug glug
Oi! Keep out there, I’m lighting a fire under that’s my dinner
It’s nice to see that cheap and disgusting beer like Coors Light might be useful… except for #1
Jamie – In number one, you can fill the can back up to the full mark with BBQ sauce, and the flavors of both will permeate the meat while cooking. Just make sure to use a low-sugar kind, as the sugar in BBQ sauces tends to scorch if you use it too soon in the cooking process.
Jamie:
#1 is a very bad idea! Tasty perhaps (though I wouldn’t try it), but very unhealthy.
Beer cans contain aluminum and and are covered with paint. I am not sure what the paint consists of, but I would guess that it was not intended to be heated to 350+ degrees (f) and then smoked into food.
As for the can itself – aluminum is highly reactive. Any acidic or salty compounds will cause the aluminum to be absorbed into the food (most cookpots are anodized to minimize the danger).
Excessive aluminum is an indicated cause of some really unwanted side effects, too many to list here…
Please refer here: http://www.ghchealth.com/dangers-of-aluminum.html
That being said, here is a BBQ use… Soak natural wood chips (mesquite or hickory) in a bowl of beer for about 1 hour. Then add the chips to the fire as the meat is cooking. Adds that wonderful flavour, and no added toxicity.
Thanks for the list.
Wet Blanket!
Speaking as a Master Gardener, you need to be careful when using beer on plants – it will harm if not kill some of the plants. Plants, like people, have a differing appreciation for beer.
Cool list.
My mom used to use beer when she would make fajitas.
It helps alot, her fajitas are great.
Didn’t someone make a beer shampoo in the 70′s?
Great list, although I don’t think number 9 is that unusual. I know plenty of people who drink when they do not feel well, myself included. Not sure how much it helps out in the long run, but it sure makes me feel better at that moment.
these are all great, but there’s no yeast in most macro brewed beer. just a fyi.
Beer bread made with any beer is really good. Try using a good stout. I love Genus bread. soooo yummy!
revolting. beer tastes like tree bark.
Beer Cheese Soup. Tastes awesome, especially on a cold day!
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup thinly diced celery
1/2 cup flour
5 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons Parmesan Romano Cheese
1/4 teaspoon Accent (MSG)
1/2 cup thinly diced green onions
1 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
6 ounces cheddar cheese
1 bottle (11 oz size) beer
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Melt butter; saute vegetables until done but not browned. Blend in flour, dry mustard and MSG. Slowly add chicken stock, bring to a boil; cook, stirring, 5 minutes. Blend in cheddar cheese, Parmesan-Romano cheese, and beer. Let simmer over low heat for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
The beer gods come through again! Thank you for the list, I am going to go bathe now.