How to Make Beer Cap Magnets

Over the past few years I've noticed that drinking beer at home leads to a lot of potential waste. There are a lot of bottles and bottle caps that end up needing to be tossed out. Of course, I recycle bottles that are twist top and I reuse pop top bottles for homebrewing. But what to do with all of the crazy technicolor caps we find on craft beer bottles? 

For the longest time I just threw them away but a few months ago I decided I wanted to do a little more with the leftover caps. Long term I'd like to put together some kind of table with caps as the centerpiece, but a much easier project is to simply turn the caps into magnets. Sounds easy enough, but one thing I always had trouble with was getting the caps off the bottle without damaging them (or myself) somehow. I've had many friends try to teach me how to pop them off with leverage from a lighter, but I was never successful. I could sort of get them off with a spoon, but that led to a bloody knuckles when I slipped a few too many times. I reached out to twitter to find out if there are bottle openers people are using that won't bend or damage a cap upon removal. That's when I learned about The Grab Opener. I decided to reach out to the makers of Grab Opener about their product to find out if it was true. Was there really something out there that would allow me to get caps off of my bottles cleanly without the risk of spilled blood? 

The answer is a resounding YES. The hiss of a freshly opened bottle of beer is one of the most satisfying sounds I come across daily. I didn't think it was possible to improve upon this until I used the Grab Opener and the power of leverage to seamlessly remove the cap. Best of all, Grab Opener has a magnet that prevents the caps from bouncing all through my kitchen. At $16, it's a bit more money than I've previously spent on bottle openers, but it does exactly what I want so why not pay a little extra for something that I use nearly every day? Whether or not you're looking to save beer caps for nerdy art projects is irrelevant. The Grab Opener is a great product that fans of craft beer should consider. 

For those of you interested in nerdy art projects, below you'll find a little tutorial of how to put together Beer Cap Magnets. 

You will need:

• Beer
• Bottle Opener that won't damage caps....and then the cap removed.
• Sandpaper
• Adhesive
• Bolts
• Magnets

Step 1: Grab a good a beer and The Grab Opener. 

Step 2: Remove the Cap. 

Step 3: Use Sandpaper to remove some of the plastic on the inside of the cap. This step is done to help the glue adhere in a future step. Be careful not to scrape the cap on whatever service you might be holding it against. 

Step 4: Find the manliest hot glue gun around (or Gorilla glue) and add some glue to the cap. Place a bolt on the glue and hold. Once it's stuck, add more glue to the top of the bold and place a magnet on the bolt. The bolt is to add some distance between the magnet and the cap to prevent scratching of surfaces later. 

Step 5: Put the magnet on your beer fridge and take a bad picture of your handy work.

And that's all. It's really simple and I think a cool way to spice up a beer fridge or kegerator. I'd like to thank the people behind The Grab Opener for sending me one of their products to test. It worked as good as advertised and help me get the caps I needed for future projects.