Beer Hacks To Simplify Your Summer Drinking

Welcome the long, lazy days of summer! Who’s ready to break out the beers and let the good times flow this week (us! us!). 

It’s no secret that we love cracking open a cold one when the sun is beating down relentlessly. With the season being full of promises – think beach days, music festivals, and backyard BBQs – we felt it’s time to get our beer drinking game on point. 

When it comes to quenching our thirst, we’ve never met a shortcut we didn’t like. So, in the spirit of making your chill sessions smooth sailing, we present to you a few hacks, tips, tricks – whatever you want to call them. Trust us, they’ll make your beer-drinking life helluva lot easier. Cheers!

Chill out with beer ice cubes

Beer and ice cubes. A terrible combination, right? Not if the ice cubes are 100% beer. Here’s our thinking: the next time your Uber arrives before you and your pals finish your beers, simply pour the leftovers into an ice cube tray and leave them in the freezer. But be careful; the trick is to pour slowly to avoid foam and to fill the tray halfway with beer as the liquid will carbonate and rise. So, when you’re having your beer outside on a lounge-y chair or patch of grass somewhere in the sun, and you find that your brewski has turned lukewarm, simply drop two cubes in your glass. Your beer will be as chill as you.

Paper towels to the rescue

It’s 5:30 pm, you have guests over at 6:00 pm, and you forgot to throw your six pack of Gilly’s into the fridge. No need to lose your cool. Just wrap your cans in damp paper towels and toss them in the freezer. Within 15 minutes, your beer will be cold and ready to drink. Which means you’ll have some spare time to figure out the best one-liner jokes to spice up your small talk.

Add a special ingredient to your ice bucket

Another quick-chill method will have your room-temperature beers quaffable ASAP. Fill a large bucket with water, add in a cup of table salt, then throw in lots of ice cubes. The salt will dissolve the ice, turning it into freezing water, which allows your beer to cool more rapidly than it would without it. All that’s left for you to do is toss a couple of Gilly’s into the mixture. Chemistry 101, yall!

Check if your glasses are ‘beer clean’

Do you have guests who prefer to pour their beer? You better have a clean glass for that because impurities (grease or dish soap) will reduce the amount of foamy head and screw up the mouthfeel and flavors. Luckily, there’s an easy way to figure out if your glasses are spotless. Just dip them in water, and if you see an even film of wetness inside the glass, you’re good to go. If there are droplets sticking to the inside, the glass could use another clean.

Think outside the (cooler) box

Ice balloons are far more efficient at cooling beers than typical ice cubes. No more topping up the ice in your cooler. No more running to the store to buy more ice. No more melted ice at the bottom of your coolers. Plus, they add some unexpected flair to your get-together (nobody would expect to see colorful frozen water balloons among their Gilly’s). Take a couple of balloons and fill them with water until the balloon is roughly the size you want your ice ball to be. Place them in the freezer until frozen, then load them into your cooler when needed. You can use them for a water balloon fight when they melt.

Get your fridge logistics right

Ever came home from buying beer and wonder where you are even going to put all of it with your fridge stuffed full of things? The next time you stock up on your Gilly’s, use a binder clip to organize your goods. Fasten the clip to the fridge shelf. Then stack your cans in a pyramid shape in the space between the clip and the wall of the fridge. It will keep your beer neatly arranged and prevent them from rolling around. 

Label your drink with rubber bands 

Parties are fun, but not when you set your can down and can’t remember which one is yours. Because now is not the time to accidentally take a gulp of someone else’s beer, we suggest wrapping different colored rubber bands around cans so that everyone can keep track of their drink.

No cooler? No problem

Just turn a large store-bought ice bag into a portable cooler. Start by tearing small holes in the plastic wrap. Then press a can through each hole you’ve created, making sure that the cans are firmly nestled between the ice cubes. As you drink the chilled beers, make sure to replace each empty hole with another can. 

Make a beer float

Nothing beats a cool dip in a pool in the heat of summer. It gets even better when you have some ice-cold beers on hand. Enter the beer float. It basically consists of a large square plastic container with foam noodles attached to each side. The foam noodles are held into place with waterproof rope. Fill it with ice and a couple of Gilly’s and let it bob around with you in the water. Here’s a tutorial that explains how it’s done. 

Want more hacks like these? Check out our other blog posts:

• Beer cooling hacks every hiker needs to know
• Sneaky Ways To Drink Your Gilly’s Lager In Public

Let’s hear it for the geniuses who came up with these cool ideas (or perhaps some of them just tried all the wrong ways of doing things). Either way, we know that we’ll be borrowing a few of these hacks for sure. Go forth Legends and grab your Gilly’s from your nearest store – with these tips, you’ll be ready for your next get-together.