Hidden Beer Coolers and How To Hide Your Beers

I hope that you are here to help me brainstorm ways to hide your beer. The main focus will be ways to hide your good beer from other party goers or relatives coming over for events like Thanksgiving.

You can’t always carry a cooler backpack, sometimes ya gotta hide your good beer.

Okay, here are some ideas on how to hide your beer (and yes, even your hard seltzer) in a cooler or any way we can:

Cooler With a Hidden Compartment

I really wanted to find a magic cooler that has a false bottom that one could easily get to and not draw attention. That does not seem to exist on Amazon or any regular website. But there are people that are good at building things beer related.

Like this one dude that (if you’re good with working with wood) shows you how to make a small hidden compartment in the lid of an ice-chest:

Yeah, I’m not going through all that. Plus, it is not practical enough to keep something as big as beer cans or bottles and hold something that would keep that false top cold. Moving on.

Best Coolers That Are Less Obvious

I found this Rotomolded Hard Cooler over on East Oak that isn’t hidden, but it doesn’t look like a cooler and it makes for a good seat. So it’s classier. Plus, it is highly rated and well insulated, so it checks all the boxes, even if it isn’t straight up hiding.

You can check the price on Amazon as well.

Simply Hide Your Beer Cooler Somewhere

Now we’re going to try and flat out hide the cooler. Put it in an odd spot that does not draw attention to where you’re going, but also can be accesses by you without hassle. Some ideas:

IN THE BEDROOM. This would be weird to do at somebody else’s place, but totally possible at your own.
THE TOILET TANK. I suppose you could fashion some sort of cooler that would go inside the tank of the main toilet. Maybe big enough for some cans but still let the toilets flusher still work probably. This is hardcore and would require ingenuity I don’t have.
COOLER IN THE BUSHES. The grassy knol where there was a second cooler. Hide it in the trees, dude. “Why does Mikey keep going over into the bushes?” “Yeah, and now he somehow has a new beer?”
WITH THE PURSES. Get one of them cooler bags, one that looks like maybe it’s a mom purse. Leave it amongst the other “bags” and hopefully nobody will see you checking the coat and bags area every 20 minutes.
BEER CLOSET. If you are lucky enough to have a walk-in closet, you now have a Beer Closet. This may require you to sneak away and do some chugging.

In Ground Beer Cooler

You probably have seen this one. The HopfenHohlen underground beer cooler:

This thing looks really boss until you realize that there is no way those beers are staying cold in our climate. It would be great if your backyard is in Alaska though.

Supposedly, being underground keeps things cool. That may work in the Sweden, dude, but not here. Really wish it was available as a normal idem in North America, but I suppose a smart enough person could engineer one.

How to Hide Beer In the Fridge

So you don’t have the budget for one of those badass beer fridges that you can keep stocked for anyone coming over.

You are trying to keep visitors away from your stash or you’re at someone’s else’s and you don’t want your cousin’s new dumb boyfriend getting to your beer.

If you’re at home, make sure there is an ice-chest that everyone knows contains the party beer. Make it clear. Put a sign on the damn thing. “This is where to come get beer!”

Then you put the good beer in the fridge. But do a little hiding there too. Underneath veggies always works. Just watch out for this question:

Cousin: “Where are you getting those?”
You: “Oh, it was the last one.”

That’s how you play it. You can also hide it in other ways, like with a koozie or cooler:

Hide a Beer Can With Koozie or Cooler

This is a nice generic style of can cooler (that can double as a cup). I mention generic as this Joopetalk can cooler doesn’t look like you’re hiding your beer or hard seltzer, just looks like you’re hydrating and stuff.

There is also this one by Asobu that is nicely rated and fairly popular.

Secret Cover For a Beer Can

You can also hide your beers with a special slip cover. There are several different types available that can make your can look like you’re drinking a Coke or a Pepsi. Good idea, unless your unsuspecting cousin is 10-years sober and thinks he just opened a Sprite.

Here is one in action:

Hi-Tech: One that truly helps keep your beer cold like a Yeti Rambler Colster. I have one. I like it. It works well enough at keeping your can cold and mostly hidden. But it’s only good for 12oz cans.

The Hopsulator, on the other hand, is all about keeping 16oz cans cool. Which is cool of them.

I have yet to buy one but I will as soon as I have the cash. They are priced at $20 or $23 dollars and seem worth it. It’s just that when I have an extra $20 lying around, it usually goes to new beer and not gadgets. But I’ll get one soon.

Stick With the Basics

If all these sound too much. Just use my basic method of hiding the good beers at the bottom of the cooler and hope for the best.

Actually, the best is having enough money to buy enough good beer for everyone and not worry if it gets wasted on non-beer geeks. A few beers can be spilled in the continuous effect to get people drinking good, Indie Beer.

Feel free to share your tips for hiding the good stuff, by leaving a comment.

Cheers!

Oh, and if you are going to hide one, this is the cooler at the top of my wish-list (literally) for hiding, or more likely, displaying and bragging about.

(Heads up: Some of these are affiliate links. You don’t have to do anything, it just means I might get some money if you buy something and I thought you should know.)

Does Beer Expire? Can You Drink Old Beer?

So, does beer expire? Can beer go bad? Can you drink old beer?

Hell yes, beer can go bad and it can expire…sorta. Sometimes it’s bad as soon as it’s packaged, am I right?! Sorry, never mind the jokes.

Does beer expire? Yes.

Can you drink old or expired beer? Yes.

Thankfully because of the alcohol in the beer, it keeps the beer mostly safe from making you sick if you drink it.

It’s the infected bottles you have to worry about and even then I would not worry too much.

Old beer just tastes… old. If you take a sip and it’s awful you can move on rather quickly and not be in any kind of trouble.

You probably won’t even end up cleaning out your system.

I keep old beer around to drink for nights when I have no other beer and no money to get more. And I can’t say that I have ever gotten sick or even felt crappy because the beer was old or expired.

Now mind you, I might have got hungover for drinking too much of the old beer, but it was not because it was dated. (btw, if you did drink too much, you could try some CBD for a hangover)

RELATED: It is a good idea to keep around something to prevent hangovers or to help you get over them (it feels like old beer can give you a hangover more than fresh) I recommend having Nuleaf’s CBD Drink Mix in the house. It hydrates quickly and eases inflammation and is legal to ship in most states

Have a look at the mix.

How do you know when beer goes bad?

Some things to look for, obvious or not:

Check the date. Unfortunately not all beer as an expiration date or a packaged date. If it has a date and it’s a hoppy beer, you might as well put it back and move on if the date is more than three months old.
Look at the color. If it’s cloudy and it’s not really supposed to be a hazy beer, something ain’t right.
Is it sealed? Once in a while, a bottle is not sealed right and there might be a little junk around the camp. Also, if you open it up and there is no “pachiisst” sound or no carbonation leaving, probably not a good thing.

What is the shelf life of beer?

This depends on the style.

IPAs and Pales are getting old as soon as they are put into a can. Ideally, they are best on day one. Realistically, you have a good three-month window on hoppy beers – maybe a little longer if it is one that is high in alcohol.

Lager and Pilsners last longer. To me, they are already kinda skunked but that’s just personal preference. Unless it’s a hoppy lager, it does not make much difference as far as I am concerned. But fresh is always best.

Stouts and Porters are good ones to cellar if they are high in alcohol and are low in adjuncts like, say, coffee. So drinking an old stout is totally cool and even encouraged.

Sours can be better the older they get. They can also get worse. Drink it and take some notes in your beer-drinking notebook.

Is it safe to drink after the expiration date?

Yes. Mostly. There really isn’t an expiration date anyway.

As I said earlier, being there is alcohol involved, most of the bad stuff that could develop in old liquid, won’t get a chance to live. So, it’s pretty safe to drink.

Really, all you’re risking is a possible slightly rough day tomorrow on your bathroom break. Totally worth it, I say. Heck, a really good hazy beer can mess up your system much more than an old beer can.

If your beer is infected, that’s another thing. If you want to be able to tell exactly what the infection is, you can read up on it at the Thrillist.

Basically, if it stinks really bad or it tastes super weird, it might probably be infected.

How to read beer expiration dates

If you’re lucky enough to be holding a beer with an actual date printed on it, you’re cool and we can figure this out.

Date it was packaged (when it was put in a bottle or can).
Best buy date. (The date the brewery wants you to drink it buy)
Julian date. Some breweries use this and I don’t have the brain power to explain it to you here. But Sciencing knows how to calculate the Julian date so I will leave it to them.

The best for us, the drinker, is the “born on” or packaged date because it lets YOU decide what is the best date to drink it.

Also good when the brewery markets the actual beer to be drunk by a certain date like Stone does with its Enjoy By series:

Tip to brewers: I love when breweries get cute with the stamp/date on the bottom of their cans. But not when I cannot figure out if the date is a packaged date or a drink-by date.

Drinking expired beer

It is tough to throw out or “drain pour” beer. I know. I have a Pizza Port “Swami” IPA in the fridge that is over a year old and I can’t seem to let go of it. I really want to figure out how I can drink old IPAs and still enjoy them.

Like, be so good at tasting old beer that I can actually enjoy it. Maybe the Beer Temple has found a way to do that:

It’s something to try anyway. There are days I have used a gas credit card to buy beer so I can be desperate enough to drink old beer.

To conclude, does beer expire? Yes and no

Beer does expire. But it’s different from going bad and being infected. If it’s simply old, it’s safe to drink. You just might have to work at it to make it enjoyable. Maybe just play some rad outdoor games and you’ll forget all about how old the beer tastes.

P.S. If you would like to make your old beer taste better, check out this post.

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Oh hey, If you think this kinda beer content is cool, you might super totally fall in love with my newsletter:

Drinking & Thinking

HEY BEER! Do We Call It Mixed or Variety Pack?

mixed pack from Left Hand

I like to get deep into the weeds (or wort) with little nerdy beer questions on this blog. This one is no exception and it’s a really dumb question but one that has been bugging me for some time and I need to deal with it.

Is it Mixed Pack or Variety Pack?

When a brewery distributes and is big enough, they can start making mixed packs or variety packs. But which is it? This is super important guys! {insert your eye-roll here} I need to figure this out for some reason.

Let’s break down some of the heavyweights in Craft Beer and see what they call their packs. Maybe we can filter out some stuff.

Sierra Nevada Brewing:
Both. They use both. There is a 4-Way IPA pack of their own IPAs called a VARIETY pack. But most of their standard packs are called MIXED.

Modern Times:
Mixed. This one is maybe my favorite because it has the fun little window that shows you the rotating can from their MIXED pack.

New Belgium:
Sampler. Variety. Colab. They seem to use all terms BUT mixed.

Sam Adams:
Variety pack.

Upslope Brewing:
Mix box.

Stone:
Mixed pack.

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Firestone Walker:
Mixed pack.

Left Hand Brewing:
Mixed pack.

Deschutes:
Variety pack.

Avery Brewing:
Variety pack.

Ska Brewing. They call theirs a Mixed Up Variety Pack. Woah. Mindblow. They use both. Now I’m thoroughly confused.

Beers Of The World: This was the original for me. So exotic these packs we would get (still I guess) from Cost Plus World Market. But they don’t call it mixed or variety.

Oscar Blues: “Cannundrum” is called a Variety Pack. But get this: their CANarchy pack is called a MiXED pack.

Maybe we have stumbled onto something here. The CANundrum is a pack with all Oscar Blues beers. The CANarchy is a pack that features beer from different breweries.

Variety Pack: Same brewery.
Mixed Pack: Different breweries.

Wait, what am I saying? I have already cited, in this post, examples of mixed packs with beers from the same brewery. Dummy,

It all comes clear. Or is it as clear as a juicy hazy IPA?

Gail Zack from Zack’s Brewing came up with a good suggestion the other day. Maybe it’s Variety when it’s different styles and mixed when it’s the same style.

Oh ok, this sounds right. Except, Sierra Nevada calls it a mixed pack whether its all IPAs OR the styles are mixed up. DAMMIT! So close.

Then I thought maybe the answer lies outside of beer. What about the big bags of the little bags of chips? The ones you get for your packed lunch or soccer snacks. Well a lot of them are called variety packs.

Then Frito Lay, as if to screw with me, calls them Mix Variety Packs.

Solved not solved.

Mixed or variety? There is no definitive rule. Guess we are left to wander around calling one thing two things.

This just in: Some people call them Sampler Packs. Oh fuck.

Cheers!

-Mikey

Before you go

If you would like some further talk on the subject, we discuss this topic in a VARIETY of ways on The Perfect Pour podcast, in particular during episode #277 “Have We Reached Peak Haze?”

Pizza and Beer: The Simple Guide To Pairing

The right beer to go with your pizza is not hard to figure out. That doesn’t mean we can’t help each other get better at beer and pizza.

You don’t need me to tell you, but, Pizza and beer is a thing. Maybe the biggest thing in the genre of pairing beer with food, and pizza with… well, anything.

Beer and pizza, while they may be two of the greatest things in the world, take up valuable calorie real estate.

So it is essential these calories are used properly. We want the optimal experience.

A Simple Guide To Pizza and Beer

But, before we go further with this post, here is a quick infographic that craftbeer.com has created, to get you quickly into your perfect pairing:

Craft Beer and Pizza pairing

Alright, now get cheesier with me and keep reading…

Beer and pizza pairing is serious.

Don’t go into your eating and drinking all willy nilly. Stay focused while enjoying all the goodness and comfort that beer and pizza provides.

The thing to keep in mind is finding a balance.

If the pizza is mild, bland, basic, then you go big, flavorful and spicy, on the beer.

If your are gorging on spicy pizza, you get a beer that is simple and mellow.

Here are five basic pizza styles to match up with the proper beer:

CHEESE PIZZA: Red Ale.

Alternatives include Wheat Beer. Ambers. Pilsners. Pales are good in this situation as well.

This is the best use of a red beer. In fact, I really don’t care to have a red without pizza around. I feel like it is a style that needs pizza or needs something else.

A red ale is like salsa. I suppose it is fine on its own but I need something to eat with it to actually enjoy it.

Maybe the best known red out here on the West Coast is the Karl Straus Red Trolley Ale. Well, best know if you have ever gone to Disneyland: California Adventure, that is and found the Karl Strauss Beer Cart.