Generally, beer and moving cars don't work well together. But in a few places, companies are recycling the detritus of the beermaking process into a clean gasoline additive that allows cars to get from A to B without using as much of the precious fossil fuel.

The latest venture comes from New Zealand where for a short time, motorists can fill up their cars with beer. Or, more precisely, a substance that comes from beer. One of the leftovers of the brewing process is a slurry of yeast that didn't get used in the fermentation process. This yeast can be re-used to create more alcohol (aka ethanol), which can then get distilled and refinedinto an ethanol version that is of a high enough quality to put in your gas tank. (Don't pour your drink into the gas tank. It won't power your car. And you will have wasted a drink.)

Using ethanol to power cars isn't new. In the United States, some corn is grown exclusively for the purpose of being turned into the biofuel. Brazil, taking a slightly greener approach, has been recycling sugarcane waste to create ethanol for years. And on the beer front, Molson Coors, a brewing company giant, has been making ethanol from beer since 1996, and in 2008all cars at the Democratic National Convention in Denver ran on their version of the beer-based biofuel.