I just saw this picture of what someone made to store their beer and had to write about it. You can click the image for a much larger version to see the detail.

The simplicity of this design is fantastic… it’s easy and cheap as well. Here’s what you need:

Two 2×4’s

1 large piece of plywood

2 similar sized pieces of lattice

A healthy supply of beer. Check!

Building this looks pretty easy, although I’ve said that before and regretted it.

Attach a 2×4 to each long side of the plywood, so that the 1 1/2″ side is in contact with the plywood. Attach a lattice on top of that so that it lines up perfectly with the plywood. Attach another set of 2x4s to that the same way you did in step 1. Attach a second lattice on top of that, shifted so that if it was standing up, the holes would be slightly higher than the first lattice. Attach this whole thing to a wall.

As you can see, the guy who made this stores both full and empty bottles. You could say that it’s best to store the bottles completely upright, or that you want to collect empties upside down in a box. For me though, I love how well this double lattice thing stores the bottles vertically. One of my biggest challenges is that if I box the beer and store it vertically, you can’t get to the beer on the bottom. If you store with access to the beer in each box, you have no space left on the floor. This solves both problems; vertical storage and you can easily get to every bottle.

This could easily be modified to store wine also. If you made the openings in the lattices even with each other, you could rest the bottles inside so that each wine bottle neck rested on the outside lattice opening, tipping it slightly forward like a real wine rack.

One last consideration is weight. I would imagine that if this thing is loaded with full beers, it can get pretty heavy. That might buckle the lattice and you beer could come crashing down. You want to make sure that you reinforce the lattice as much as possible and test its limits over time.

I’m going to give this thing a go, and I’ll report back. I love a good homebrewing DIY project, and this is perfect!