5 things you can do with beer

WIth full credit to thestar.com for publishing this today. The references to the Mill Street Brewery and the Ritz Carleton are both in Toronto.

http://www.thegridto.com/life/food-drink/beer-macgyver/



Beer MacGyver
Five things you didn’t know you could do with beer.
BY: Crystal Luxmore

Polish your bling

“I use beer to shine leaves on my big rubber plant,” says Alma Lekic, a gerontologist. “It works wonders.” The acidity in beer makes it an excellent cleaner for gold, silver and copper jewellery. Just drop the tarnished trinket in a glass of beer, leave overnight (or longer if the piece is really nasty) and polish with a dry cloth.

Stain furniture

Helen Sheedy, sales manager at Wellington Brewery, says her friend used the brewery’s Russian Imperial Stout to stain his wooden tabletop. Beer soaks into wood, giving it the uneven colouration of an antique. Anything from a dark chestnut to a black beer will work, just make sure to sand off any varnish first.

Exfoliate skin

The hop flower is said to have antiseptic and healing properties. Maria Haggo, operations manager at the Ritz-Carlton spa, devised a hop scrub for their Blokes and Beer treatment. Dried flowers from Mill St. Brewery are crushed and mixed with sea salt and essential oils to soften and cleanse hands.

Kill pests

Pour beer in little bowls to trap fruit flies (cover it with plastic wrap and poke a few holes—the suckers can get in but can’t escape) or in open bowls in the garden to drown slugs.

Get to sleep

Hop pickers were known to pass out on the job, and hops have been recommended as a sedative and sleep agent since the 1870s. Recent studies have confirmed the Zs-enhancing properties of the plant, which is a close relative of marijuana. Try drinking hop extract or tea, or slipping some whole hop flowers into a pillowcase.