How to Repel Insects With Beer

Last Updated: March 29, 2019

Insects can be a nuisance both indoors and outdoors. Outdoor pests like gnats, flies, and mosquitoes can ruin an otherwise pleasant patio experience, and indoor pests like cockroaches can spread harmful bacteria around your home. However, many insect repellents are made with chemicals that are often toxic when inhaled or ingested and that are ecologically unsound. You may be interested in alternative insect repellents that are made with natural ingredients that you may already have at hand. This guide will demonstrate how to repel insects with beer, using a few different techniques designed for different pests.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Trap Some Common Pests with Beer

1
Kill fruit flies with an open beer can. Fruit flies (also called vinegar flies) are attracted to fermented beverages like beer and wine. For an effective fruit fly trap, leave an open beer can sitting out with a small piece of paper taped over the lid. Poke a small hole in the paper to allow the flies to enter the can. They will be unable to find their way out and will eventually drown in the beer.
2
Trap cockroaches in a jam jar. Smear some Vaseline around the inside rim of an empty jam jar, and then place a piece of beer-soaked bread in the bottom of the jar. Leave the jar out overnight in the area where cockroaches have become a problem. The roaches will crawl into the jar to consume the beer-soaked bread, but will be unable to get out because of the Vaseline.

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3
Drown earwigs using an open cup of beer. Earwigs can be a perennial problem in the garden. To help reduce their numbers, bury a plastic cup in the ground so that it is flush with the surrounding soil. Fill the cup halfway with beer, and the earwigs will fall into the cup and be unable to get out. This technique also works with slugs and snails.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Make an All-Purpose Beer Insect Repellant

1
Allow a can of beer to go flat. You can make a general-purpose insect spray using beer and a few other simple ingredients. Begin by opening a beer and allowing it to lose its carbonation so that it can be mixed easily with the other ingredients.
2
Mix the insect repellent in a spray bottle. In a spray bottle, mix roughly equal proportions of the flat beer with mouthwash. Add a few spoonfuls of Epsom salt and active dry yeast, shaking the bottle vigorously to combine all the ingredients.
3
Spray the beer insect repellant around plants. This spray works very well for keeping insects from damaging your garden plants. Spray it on the ground surrounding each plant and insects will be discouraged from crossing. Spray a new application every few weeks.

Community Q&A

Question

Is there a good home solution for detouring cockroaches out of and away from the home?

Community Answer

If you put down a barrier of diatomaceous earth, they won't be able to cross it. You'll have to replace it outside up against your house each time it rains, though. That will keep more from coming in, especially those nasty wood roaches (the really big ones). If you have regular roaches, you could potentially put down diatomaceous earth (DE) at the perimeter of every room, hallway, and closet for a while, and they'd eventually die out, as each time one crossed the barrier, it would kill it. However, that'd be a slow process, and you'd have a lot of dirt in your house! It would probably be better to just get an exterminator as a one-time thing, then use the DE as a deterrent.