Keeping It Cool!

Brrrrr is the temperature you want your beer to be at when taking a drink. Otherwise it just doesn't taste as good. There's a trick where you put your beer bottle into a sock and then hang it on a branch. This slowly cools the beer to make it that much more enjoyable.

If you're at home, like the rest of us, you should consider getting yourself a beverage refrigerator so that you can keep the beer cold, but not use up the space in your main refrigerator. There's also the added convenience of having the beer right next to the TV, that way you don't have to go far to get a drink for the game. You can find a lot more information on choosing the type of refrigerators at the minirefrigeratorzone, it has a lot of resources for you to look things up, like how to choosing a proper beverage refrigerator.

What we also do sometimes is to keep the beer outside at night. Or if it's wintertime, just keep a case or two outside on your deck. This has the ability to keep the beer cold without costing valuable fridge space. We have a huge family (read 100+), so the reunions are actually quite crazy. This is exactly how we keep a lot of beer cold at no extra cost!

Happy drinking and keep it cool okay?

Where to Find Good Beer

In many places in the world, you can just head anywhere that sells beer and buy it. In Northern America, brew pubs and micro-breweries are the best hang outs to enjoy freshly brewed, greatly crafted beer. However, they are not found everywhere, yet.

A lot of restaurants and bars are starting to sell high quality beers in bottles and on tap. If you want to drink a great beer, never ask for an "import!" Today, the market can make you very disappointed while missing a really awesome domestic. Always ask for a beer list. It's not all the time that the servers are educated when it comes to beer lore and might misinterpret what you want in a good beer.

Plenty of liquor stores offer an amazing selection of bottled beers. Major groceries are also starting to carry popular selections.

Measuring Alcohol Strength

Usually, alcohol is measured by percent of volume (abv). In America, the alcohol content in beer is measured by weight (abw). Because alcohol weighs about 20% less compared to water, abw measures seem 20% less than the abv measures for the similar alcohol amount. In Europe, the strength of beer is measured by the fermentables in the wort.

But just recently, Britain made use of OG (original gravity) -- 1000 times the ratio of the wort gravity to that of water. So a beer that has an OG of 1040 is 4% denser compared to water, due to dissolved sugars. Generally, you can take 1/10 of the last 2 digits to approximate the alcohol percentage by volume when dissolved sugars become fermented. In this example, the abv will be around 4% (40/10 = 4%) Right now, British beer is taxed based on the actual % ABV instead of the older OG so you can find both of them displayed.

3 Other Useful Things You Can Do with Your Beer

Aside from giving fun and nourishment to many, beer can also become useful inside your home and even your garden. Here the 3 things you can do with your beer aside from being the main attraction in your Happy Hour:

Insect Trap - If you want to get rid of flying insects, then you can set up a trap using beer. The beer's smell can attract a lot of bugs and you can make a simple trap (one-way in, no-way out) for these flying creatures. 

Polish. You can also use beer as a polish for different surfaces especially metal. Dampen your rag with your beer and then rub it down to your stuff's surface. You may or may not rinse it with clean water after that. 

Rust Remover. Beer can soften or totally dissolve rust.  So if you want to save your screws, bolts, nuts, etc, just soak them in beer!