Category: Beer Culture

How to make an old beer taste better

Rush Hour Breakfast Stout poured into a glass and pictured next to some sea salt

Last night all I had around to drink was old beer that I hadn’t bothered drain-pouring yet. This made me question how to make these old beers taste better. What can be done?

I filtered the results and brought the best to you. 

Turns out, you will need a French press. I don’t have one so I say you can just kind of mix in the things some other way – but you’ll probably get better results using a French press (something I now am adding to my wish list).

There are two main ideas to bring new life to your old beer, but I want to quickly list all of the best ones here before we get into detail:

  • Mixing the beer with citrus or coffee in a French Press.
  • Adding bitters to your beer.
  • Adding/mixing salt in.
  • Adding margarita mix or making a Michelada.

Okay, so, the most serious of the beer re-fresh ideas is using a French press. But what do you press with your beer? Try these:

  • Remove the zest of a grapefruit (orange or lime could work too). Take that zest and half a grapefruit (with the peel removed) and put them through a French press. Take that and put it on the top of your beer (I obviously don’t know how French presses work). Gives your beer a fresh citrus vibe that overtakes the cardboard. Good for Pales and IPAs or any beer that can take on citrus.
  • Take cocoa nibs and put them through the French press process with your beer. Good for tart beers.
  • Take freshly ground coffee and put your beer through the French press process. Works best on Stouts but I think it would add something to most styles.
  • Slice half a mango, and use the French press process. Good for West Coast IPAs.
  • For Lager and Ambers it doesn’t matter, they already wack and there is no helping them…ZING!🤣

Not every idea for brightening your beer involves a French press. Another great (and easier) idea to try is adding a couple of drops of a Bitter. Let’s listen to Cara tell us about bitters and think about which ones would be good for the style of beer we want to taste fresh again:

So yeah, now I gotta get a French press – and never use it for coffee. Speaking of, here is a list of equipment and other items that would help you have a good beer freshening system:

Related reading:

If you have better tips for freshening your old beer, leave it for us in the comments.

Beer Gifts For Men (Yes, Women Too)

A new personal beer fridge is a can’t-miss gift

You are looking for the best beer gifts for men, or the beer snob in your life and I am here to give them to you. I am always looking for gift ideas so I thought probably do too.

Sure, you can wander Amazon or the Internet as a whole and call it a day. No, it’s too basic. You could waste a lot of time that way. You need someone to filter it down for you.

I am a beer geek and also a guy and I know what I would like to get as a gift for Christmas, or birthday, or Father’s Day, or any damn day. I want to give you some good ideas for a beer gift for you or some other awesome person.

My Best List of Beer Gifts For Men (and Women)

Here are some beer geek gifts I would like and I hope it helps you figure out what to buy the beer dude in your life. There is a full description of gifts and links to many beer gifts further down in the post, but here are my top five picks for beer person gifts, if you don’t have time for all that:

  1. A good ice chest.
  2. A personal fridge.
  3. A good beer glass.
  4. A place to sit.
  5. A book to read.

A Good Ice Chest

In my opinion, a Yeti is the best cooler around. Everything else just tries to be it. Is it expensive? Sure. But keeping beer cold for a long time is worth it.

*Heads up: Most of these links are affiliates of my blog – just something “they” feel you should know. I might make a tiny percentage if you end up buying something.

A Fun Beer Device

I want a Square Keg so much. I am hoping they will send me one. It makes you the cool guy at the tailgate that has draft beer. People will say “Did you see that guy with the square beer thing? It was pretty cool, too bad the guy was such a dork.” I am ready to be that guy.

A Solid Beer Glass

I approve of all of them, but I am not a fan of the thickass pintglass.

A Beer Garden Shirt

There may be some states where it’s unlawful to walk into a brewery or taproom without a flannel shirt of some kind, Male or female. Beer-inspired clothing options:

While you’re here, we also like jackets because you tend to spend more time outside when you’re beer-drinking. So staying warm is important.

A Beer Journal For Documenting

This beer gift may feel a bit different, but it’s my favorite. I have a whole post about notebooks for beer geeks you can check out. But you can’t go wrong with this one. Even with Untappd, I still like to keep a log of my thoughts while drinking. A notebook would also be great for home brewers.

A Beer Making Kit

There are a lot of brewing kits on Amazon to choose from. The Northern Brewer series of home brewer starter kits, seem to be the best rated – they have many different beer styles, so make sure you’re not getting one with a beer style your person hates.

There are also some good ones at Brew Dog.

Beer RELATED Gifts For Men

Bonus quick links to gifts that a person into beer would also like. I am going to keep adding to the list until it becomes the greatest gift idea list for beer geeks of all time!:

Good Luck With Your Beer Gifting!

This was a guide I put together for you, a person looking to buy a solid gift for a beer geek. Maybe that person is you, or maybe it’s someone you know. Just know that I am a beer geek and I would love anything here, so I am guessing the beer person in your life would too.

I will regularly check back with this post and update it with more beer gifts and gadgets so bookmark this, you fine gift-giving person.

How To Drink Good Beer While Living in the Suburbs [part one]

Having Couch Beers is a great suburbs drinking pastime.

I don’t like to admit I live in the suburbs. While I am, in fact, in the middle of the city, it is still the suburbs. It’s much cooler to be in “the city” or whatever.

Main drawback: I don’t live downtown next to a cool brewery.

Hell, I don’t even live by an industrial park where new breweries seem to live.

There is a daycare on my block along with a State Farm Insurance office and a notary. Not exactly party central – except the days when I play a drinking game or bust out a beer garden style toy in the backyard.

Boring suburbs or not, that doesn’t mean you or I can’t have a good time with a nice beer in our neighborhoods. We just have to plan.

I have some initial thoughts that popped in my head to help you drink good beer while living in the suburbs:

  • Beer runs. Stop off at a brewery at some point in your week. Load up as much as your budget allows because who knows when you’ll make it back down here.
  • Ship it good. The Pandemic did at least one good thing and loosened up the beer shipping restrictions. Many states allow you to get beer shipped to your house directly from the brewery – as long as you’re still in the same state as the shipper.
  • A solid grocery store. If you are lucky enough, you have a grocery store with a decent Craft selection. This is the one thing I am lucky to have (although it is two blocks away [sighs in beer nerd]).

I will be honest with you, the main thing I do is get beer from a nearby grocery store. It is the most boring of ways for a beer geek to get their beer, and I do it often. My street cred fades day by day.

Today I went to my only nearby bottle shop/beer bar. That is something, anyway. At 3:30 in the afternoon, it was pretty packed with all sorts of people. grabbed my five overpriced cans and left without even so much as having a taster.

You see, if I have one, then I want more and I can’t do that again. People expect me to be at home most of the time, so I can’t trust myself to start up.

Tangent Warning! You have to be careful with your suburban drinking as a parent. Parents from your kid’s school are everywhere!

Yeah ‘cause, you think you’re safe at your neighborhood Mexican restaurant bar gettin’ stupid, but unknown to you little Tommy’s mom for the PTA was sittin’ in the corner the whole time watching you throw back Modelos (because it is the only drinkable beer this place has) and can’t wait to tell everyone at the next meeting how obnoxious you are and (worse) your taste in beer sticks!

[not that that has happened to me or anything]

There is a lot to unpack in this beer geek sub-genre. Definitely more to figure out on how to drink good beer while living in the suburbs. I’ll dig deeper in future post and on my newsletter for sure.

-Mikey

Best Outdoor Games for a Beer Garden or Backyard

Hey, I seriously wanted to find you the best outdoor games to play in a beer garden or just some dang grass or cement somewhere.

I have searched the Internet. I have played some outdoor/lawn games. I drank beer at outside parties. All so I can write this post. Alright, well, not ALL so I could write this post, I also had fun.

Because playing games outside is fun. Especially if you have a good beer in one hand. You can only walk around burning your beer calories for so long. You have bought your beer gifts for your man, it’s time to play.

But what are the best outdoor games for a beer garden or backyard? You are here for this, so I put together to the top games I would buy for my backyard (if I could afford them all) and/or the games I would expect to see at my local beer garden.

What are good games to play outside for adults or families?

In some states, you are not allowed to operate a beer garden without one of these human-size giant connect-four style, games. At least that is what I hear. They are fun to play for a bit with the kids, as I have done this at multiple beer gardens. It gives you (and whatever child is around), a solid activity. It’s simply a must-have.

I imagine you can play this in a basement or a yard somewhere (no beer garden or taproom required).

Buy or check the price on Amazon.

If you want to keep it classy for your nice backyard, I suggest checking out this one.

We Are Putting On Beer Cans On This

The deadly game of Giggle and Go

I don’t like the name so I am not going to even say it.

But, yes! Finally, a game that can involve our beers. Screw the picture with the water bottle, we all know we are using our beer cans. That can get pretty high stakes too if you have a real craft beer sitting on top that you really don’t want getting busted all over the ground. High Stakes.

Check the price on Amazon.

You Knew ‘Giant Jenga’ Had to Be Here!

Again, Giant Jenga is another must-have for your “kid-friendly” brewery or your own personal use. I like to tackle a giant Jenga like it was a running back – I don’t know why, it’s just fun is all, okay? You’re okay with FUN, aren’t you? Sometimes I hurt myself, does that make you feel better? Good.

Now then:

Check the price on Amazon.

(At least it’s a better price than this $50 Yeti bottle opener.)

Yardzee Giant Yard Dice Set

Oh hellssss yeah! I didn’t know they had a giant Yahtzee set thing. I feel like this could get annoying to the people in the beer garden who are NOT playing as they will randomly hear someone cry out “YAHTZEE!” (or Yardzee in this case).

But screw them. They are just jealous they aren’t playing. I think I will be getting this one for the house, actually:

Check the price and maybe buy it on Amazon.

Bean Bag Toss (Yes, I am talking about Cornhole)

Nobody likes that it’s called “cornhole”. It’s a stupid name that opens itself up to snickering by those of us who have 14-year-old senses of humor.

Since that name is terrible, some people call it “bags” or “bean bag toss”.

You knew this would be on this list. Hell, lots of breweries hold cornhole tournaments and such, so having one of these around is a needed thing.

I am linking to the most generic of one, there are many to choose from though.

Check the prices on Amazon.

If you want to get some custom bags for cornhole, check out my friends at Local Bag Co.

A Pool Table But Golf

Until I started researching for this post, I had no idea this was something that existed. It looks damn fun. The drawback would be needing a large flat and hard surface. And yes I see that it is made for indoors but it looks like I could place it in my backyard or driveway for the day and it would be fine.

Looks like you can play it drunk. With kids. Alone. All the things.

The only question is, would I play golf pool better while buzzed like I do when I play regular pool? Must find out.

Check the price on Amazon.

Giant Beer Pong For Playing Outside

Giant beer pong. Yep. Somebody made this. Of freaking course somebody made this. Hey, it’s probably damn fun. Why not? Beer pong is a fun party, lawn game, or drinking game.

I am not sure where I would store this though. But if you have the space…

Have a look on Amazon.

Pop-A-Shot Official Dual Shot Sport Arcade Basketball Game

Of all the items on this list, this may be the one I would like at my house the most. I literally put it on my personal Amazon wishlist after looking at this one.

Lots of game options. After looking at all that Amazon offers in this category, it looks the best for the price. It would be bold-ish to have bought this for a beer garden – just because it might get messed up. It would be fun while it lasted though.

Check it on Amazon.

Toss Across Your Childhood

I am including this one simply because I remember playing it when I was a kid so I started getting nostalgic.

I will let the game makers explain this game:

We took classic Tic Tac Toe and added some action!​A Genius

Couldn’t all things use a little added action? I think so.

Check the Amazon to buy.

Alright, well, now we know some cool games to get for outside and big-ass spaces

Yes, the basketball game is top on my personal list. But all of these outdoor games look rad and I kinda want them all. Seriously. Give me a couple of good beers (even if the beers make me sleepy) and one of these games and it will be a good day.

But anyway, I think those are enough things to get you on your way to a playful beer garden or backyard or NYC apartment rooftop.

Let me know in the comments what is your favorite thing to toss in your backyard is.

Cheers!

-Mikey