By Laura Reilly
Published on 2/5/2018 at 4:31 PM

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There’s nothing worse than cleaning up the house after hosting a party and finding a bunch of half drunk bottles of beer lying around the kitchen. Not only is it a waste of money, but a shameful squandering of delicious beer. Rather than pouring all these bottles down the drain, though, (or finishing someone else’s bottle … gross), repurpose the sad, flat beer by using it as a multi-purpose household tool. From polishing furniture to fertilizing the lawn, here are seven brilliant ways to use leftover beer.

Fix Brown Spots on Your Lawn
Beer is packed with fermented sugars and nutrients that a sad, browning lawn would love to imbibe. If you have a small patch of brown on your lawn, most likely due to the new family puppy, pour a cup of beer on the spot. It will act as a slow fertilizer, letting the soil absorb its nutrients and eventually sprout fresh green grass.

Remove Coffee Stains
If you don’t have any Tide-to-Go pens on hand when your morning coffee spills all over the carpet, break out the brewski instead. Beer helps lift stubborn coffee or tea stains out of fabric; just spot test a small area first to make sure you’re not doing more damage. If it works, douse the stain in beer and blot it away.

Polish Wood
Spruce up your hardwood floors or wooden furniture by gently rubbing beer onto the wood with a cloth, which will help preserve its sheen and color. If your beer is leftover, it’s probably already gone flat, but just double check it has indeed gone flat to avoid corroding the wood.

Shine Copper or Gold
Historically, the dregs of beer in kegs were collected to polish the copper vats in breweries, since beer’s slight acidity helps enhance shine without staining the metal. The same technique can be used for copper pots and pans, gold jewelry or even your precious Moscow Mule mugs. Dampen a soft towel in beer, then get to shining.

Fertilize Houseplants
Just like the brown spots on your lawn, your limp houseplants could do with a little glug of beer. The beer can act as a fertilizer, so try pouring a little flat beer into the base of a plant, wait a few days, and see if it has a positive effect. If so, work it into your plant maintenance routine.

Shampoo Your Hair
Actress Catherine Zeta Jones allegedly has been shampooing her famous, luscious locks with beer for years, and credits it for making her hair softer and shinier. However, people on the internet who have tested it said it made their hair feel greasy and smell like a college party. You’ll have to try for yourself, but if it’s anything like Supercall’s vodka shampoo experiment, shower beers are probably better for drinking.

Trap Pests
If your home is plagued by fruit flies or mice, beer can help banish them without forcing you to resort to harsh chemicals or poison. All of the pests are attracted to the sugar in beer. For fruit flies, pour some beer in a jar (ideally a non-transparent one), and puncture small holes in the lid. The fruit flies will fly into the holes and get trapped inside. It’s not pretty, but neither is a swarm of flies hovering around your fruit bowl. For mice, handle the problem humanely by pouring an inch of beer into a pail, then creating a little ramp with a piece of wood. The mice will crawl up and fall into the pail (but won’t drown since there’s only an inch of beer). Then you can remove the mice to a safe place outside, far away from your home.