beer, bier

Beer or beer means the fermented alcoholic beverage--
Do you want to stop for a beer after work?
Some friends are coming over for pizza and beer.

Bier or bier ( rhymes with beer ) means the stand on which a coffin rests, before burial--
There were flowers of every kind around the bier.
The bier stood in the middle of the church, so that mourners could file past.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"They gave their old pal an odd sendoff by surrounding his bier with cans of beer."

Note--"bier" ( rhymes with beer ) means "beer" in German--
Don't worry if you see an ad for bier--in Germany that means beer.