Washington AFP-JIJI

The latest addition to America's ever-growing list of craft beers gives new meaning to the time-honored idea of feeding leftovers to the dog.

Dawg Grog, a nonalcoholic mock brew for canines, is the brainchild of Daniel Keeton, 32, who perfected it over the past year with a little help from his 7-year-old American Staffordshire terrier Lola Jane.

It's made with wort, or spent grain, left over from the process of making real beer at the Boneyard Brewery of Bend, Oregon, where Keeton works in the tasting room when he's not home-brewing his own suds.

"I've had a lot of people say dogs love human beer," Keeton said. "But obviously that's not good for dogs, so I wanted to make an alternative that's fun to give to your dog as well as a beneficial healthy treat."

The first batch of Dawg Grog went on sale in August in Bend, a city of 76,000 in the heart of the Pacific Northwest state.

But a spate of national publicity in recent days has seen Keeton suddenly facing a rush of orders from around the United States, where craft beers from small-volume local breweries have exploded in popularity in recent years.