Ever wonder what to do with a half empty bottle of beer? I have often wondered since my husband is a big beer fan and while I like beer occasionally on hot days, I can rarely drink more than half a can or bottle. It feels wrong to pop open a beer and then end up pouring half down the sink. Here are ten “green” cleaning uses for flat beer. Who knew?!
#1 Coffee and tea stain remover. Though you don’t really want your clothes to smell like beer, it is actually a great stain remover. Pour the beer on the stain and let it sit for a minute. Blot the stain and examine. If it’s still lingering, repeat as needed.
#2 Polish your jewelry with flat beer. Pour that leftover beer into a small glass bowl and place your gem free jewelry into the bowl. Let sit for a couple of minutes, remove and dry thoroughly.
#3 Furniture cleaner. Use your flat beer to clean your wooden tables and other wooden furniture. Place flat beer on a clean, soft clot and apply. Dry with another clean, soft cloth.
#4 Clean your garden of slugs and snails. It’s a long-standing gardening practice to use beer to attract snails and slugs to remove them from your garden. Pour beer into a shallow dish and place in your garden overnight. In the morning, you’ll find it full of slugs and snails that have imbibed and drown. Toss and repeat to rid your garden of these destructive pests.
#5 Use flat beer to remove stains from carpeting. It’s always good to test this in a low-visibility area for colorfastness, however. If you have a carpet stain, pour a little beer on the stain, wait a few minutes, blot and repeat until stain is gone. This works better on fresh stains rather than stains that have become set in the carpet. I also imagine it may not work if you like DARK beer like my husband does.
#6 Cleaning doesn’t just mean cleaning your home. Flat beer makes a great hair conditioner. Wash your hair as normal and rinse, then pour that bottle of flat beer over your head, let set for a minute and rinse out. (Don’t take glass into the shower, but rather pour into a plastic cup to avoid potential breakage and injury.)
#7 Fruit fly repellent. Flat beer is a good way to eliminate pesky fruit flies. Pour the beer into a small plastic sandwich bag, filling it halfway. Place the bag into a cup and snip the corner of the bag, not too big but large enough for fruit flies to be able to fly in. They’ll be drawn to the beer and not be able to find their way out of the bag.
#8 Bee repellent. Place a few dishes of flat beer on the perimeter of your home to attract them to those areas rather than where you and your family enjoy playing and hanging out.
#9 Copper cleaner. Beer is great for polishing copper. Try placing a little on a clean cloth and applying to the bottom of your copper pans to remove tarnish and add shine.
#10 Plant food. When watering your plants or garden, mix a few tablespoons of flat beer into the water and add to your plants.
Flat beer may be unpleasant to drink but it has a number of valuable green cleaning uses. In a time where we’re learning to make the most of our resources, there’s no reason to let a little flat beer go to waste.
Okay, stale beer as a cleaner – this is a new one but I love it. Will my house stink though? My grandma always used to save stale beer and in a container and then pour it over her head and sit in the sun. It made her hair naturally blond. I saw with my own eyes that it worked!
I heard of using flat beer for slugs in the garden and rinsing your hair in flat beer but none of the others!
Awesome post, Tiffany! Who would’ve guessed? So many uses, so little stale beer….
Wow! I must say thank you for even thinking this. I’ve always wondered the same thing and these really are some useful ideas. I love drinking beer, but when you have a few friends over there always seems to be a few misplaced and forgotten beers that are discovered in the morning. Thanks for this!
Thank you very much for this post! I am also not a big beer drinker so I end up wasting half of my share. This would really be helpful in removing the stains on my robe and my husband’s dress shirts.
I’ve never heard of using flat beer as a natural cleaner either, and I’m the author of The Naturally Clean Home! I’ll have to try it as a stain remover. Thanks for the excellent tips here! ;-)