Tis’ the season lovers of beer! No, the rum in your nog hasn’t kicked in, this week we’re swapping grapes for hops to focus on gift ideas sure to inspire and delight the beer-lovers in your crew! In fact, our unique, high-quality sipping merchandise will make every suds-worthy celebration enjoyable and memorable.
It doesn’t matter whether your loved ones are casual drinkers or craft beer enthusiasts—we’ve got malt-friendly merchandise to make even the choosiest suds-sippers giddy.
Making Beer at Home
For starters, we reviewed heaps of home-brew kits and finally landed on brand ‘PicoBrew’: their PicoBrew Pico Pro allows you to mix, ferment, carbonate and serve craft beer at home with the push of a button. Choose from a variety of ingredient flavor packs from top breweries or create your own recipe of grains, hops and yeast. If the beer-fan in your life has been toying with DIY-brewing, our premium all-in-one system is a fantastic place to start.
How to Store Beer
No doubt about it, only serious aficionados will spring for these professional-grade beer cooling systems. If a recent remodel includes a professional beer cooling and dispensing plan, check out the CellarPro 1800XTS-B Beer Cooling Unit and its roided-out sibling, the CellarPro 4200VSi-B Beer Refrigeration System.
Transport of Beer
Maybe your fondness starts at ‘the drinking of’ rather than ‘the making of’, in that case, let others do the work and scoop up the fruits of their labor to carry home in extra-special customized growlers! This clear model features a customizable chalkboard label to write-in every new favorite you discover. You can even add a full-set of companion glassware decked out with its own micro-chalkboards to keep track of styles or drinkers. (Option also available in amber glass.)
Opening Beer
There are openers, and then there is “The” Opener: a mounted magnetic bottle opener made from reclaimed Kentucky whisky bourbon barrels, featuring a stainless steel opener and super-N52-grade magnet which hangs onto those caps like foam on a properly-poured pint o’ porter.
Football fans in your life? While we may not be able to help with the pizza and pretzel crumbs, we can certainly keep pesky loose caps from peppering your Man Cave floor. Turn trash into treasure when you pair this old-school combo bottle/wine opener nearby.
And Finally, Drinking Beer
Hey Glass Whales—we’ve got glasses for every beer style imaginable! Just a few are cataloged here for handy reference, but check out our website for more great styles and let us know if we can special order anything for you.
- Pilsners – Tall or Stemmed
- Lagers
- Wheat Beers – Spiegelau or Lucca
- IPAs – Spiegelau
- Stouts
- Tasting Set
- Shatterproof
For the green-minded gift recipient, try beer glasses made from Recycled Craft Beer Bottles! (Choose the Lagunitas Beer Tasting Flight or Pliny the Elder tumblers.
Craft beer quaffers – take note: we may have built ourselves on all things wine, but the ABC’s of Brew (Ales, Birra, & Cerveza) hold a special place in our bars and cellars—right alongside the other bubbly and still beverages we love to love! As a growing category for us, please share photos or comments how our hop merch brought a smile to your face (and mouth) using #IWAwine on social media!
With that, we close with a traditional Irish holiday toast:
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
and a Happy New Year.
A pocket full of money,
And a cellar full of beer!
Sláinte!
Lori Stevens is a writer based in Seattle, Washington. Her book Wine: A No-Snob Guide, Drink Outside the Box ©2015 from Rockridge Press, Berkeley, CA is available at your favorite online book retailer. Many of her international wine travel articles are available on this blog.