holiday roundup - inside out & hopsidedown glasses

I am a sucker for inside-out and upside down glasses. Case in point:

 Beer Hopside-down Pint Glasses

MoMA Design Store's Inside Out Champagne Glasses 

And WineStein (get it?)

A beer stein that is also an upside-down beer bottle? A champagne flute that is also a cylinder? A wine glass that is also a beer stein? These are hilarious.  I want them all! Almost as much as I want zillions of bottle caps!

Happy Holidays everyone. The blog will take a few weeks off for the holidays, and hopefully I'll drink lots of beer and soda over the break and have many more stories to tell you in the new year.  Don't drink too much. But enjoy yourselves! 

holiday roundup -- camo six pack beer holster

I picked this next item based solely on the writeup on HomeWetBar.com.  


How can you not be convinced by a completely serious bullet point for this camo six pack beer holster belt: "Certified to bring on the good times and guaranteed to captivate the ladies" And please, read the description and the bullet points VERY carefully. Notice anything? Like that the bullet points are basically just a repeat of the description? AWESOME.

For all of you guys out there who want to "captivate the ladies," I suggest NOT getting this six pack beer belt. But if you want to have a conversation piece at your next tailgating party, or even holiday party, DO get one of these. The only thing that would make this better is if there were a bonus pocket to keep your bottle caps. I mean, you could always just put 5 beer bottles in the holsters, and save the 6th pocket for bottle caps, but that would defeat the purpose of the whole "six pack" mentality. 

holiday roundup --- wooden bottle opener

Michael and I were shopping for a Christmas present for his mom the other day, and stopped in the MoMA Design Store, one of my favorite places to browse. Sure, we were looking for his mother, but that doesn't mean I can't point out other fun, interesting pieces in the meantime!

One cool item we found, which happens to be perfect for this blog, is a wooden bottle opener. Not only does it have a magnet underneath to keep the bottle cap from flying across the room, but it has a magnet on the top as well, so that you can keep it conveniently on your 'fridge and not have to dig through your drawers to find it when that unexpected guest swings by for a nightcap.

I like the simple design: a piece of wood, and a bent nail. I do worry, however, that this might bend your favorite bottle cap in an unpleasant way. Anyone who may have used this: please let me know if it keeps your bottle caps in tact!  But from a completely aesthetic standpoint, this bottle opener is the bees knees.  (Michael's mom, don't worry: we didn't actually buy this for you!)

holiday roundup -- beer savers

This is the time of year when holiday roundups abound. Why should it be any different here at SCBC? Throughout the year I've found some pretty great bottle caps, but what about the accoutrements that go along with drinking beer, soda, and other beverages that sport a snazzy bottle cap?

This week I'll highlight a few things that might make a good gift for the beverage connoisseur in your life. Enjoy!

While surfing the web I recently stumbled on beer savers and couldn't have been more excited. How often have I needed Michael's help in finishing a beer or soda? ALL THE TIME. What would I do if Michael wasn't around? In the past, probably just flush the said beverage down the drain, much to my chagrin. Unless, of course, it's a malta. Then down the tubes it goes, no regrets.

But a beer saver?  Well, that might be the perfect thing for someone who just can't seem to finish those last sips of beer. Why not save it for later?

I love that these look like bottle caps but with stretchy, silicon shape; and of course, they're reusable.  They may not have great designs on the top, but they make it so that I don't have to try to smash my original (awesome) bottle cap back onto the bottle, causing all sorts of problems.

Definitely worth getting for those who (for whatever reason) can't finish their beverage in one sitting. Or want to save some for a friend, who just isn't home yet.

shiner

Michael's mom sent me a few bottle caps recently. The new shipment, along with a few crowns from my stash, are going to make for some fun posts coming up.

Today I wanted to talk about Shiner. I've talked about the awesome ram bottle cap here and the ruby redbird here. But I haven't really talked about their standard Shiner caps, which happen to have amusing phrases on them (and you know I love a good phrase or slogan.)

Hefeweizen's bottle cap has the great and succinct phrase "It's Good!" and Oktoberfest has "Make a Toast." Something else very cool about these caps are the sides: Oktoberfest says "Twist and Toast!" and Hefeweizen says "Twist and Enjoy," which is cool because a) these are twist-off crowns (and you won't ruin the cap with a bottle opener) and b) there are fun phrases on the sides. I mean, come on!

I'm now realizing that Shiner has quite a variety of crowns, and I'm sure there are more than what I have. If my faithful readers have additional phrases from Shiner caps,  or other Shiners that they want to send my way, let me know in the comments.

goose island matilda = frobscottle

The last time my mom took me out on a beer run, we got quite a few Goose Island products.

Matilda is Goose Island's Belgian style pale ale that comes in what looks like a wine bottle. I think they're trying to appeal to a crossover audience of beer and wine lovers. I'm sold!

But really, Matilda reminds me of the Roald Dahl book of the same name that I read as a child. This book and The BFG were two books that I come back to time and again. Matilda was amazing: she could move things with her eyes, and was friends with her teacher. When I was a kid I wanted to be Matilda. Or I wanted to be the kid Sophie who was kidnapped by the BFG so that I could drink frobscottle (the bubbles go down!!). What do you think THAT bottle cap looked like? So the Matilda bottle cap makes me think of Frobscottle*...and wishing I was friends with my teacher when I was little. A leap, I know. But it all makes sense in my head.

To get back to the beer and bottle cap portion of this blog post, I recall that the beer was pleasing on the palate, but nothing to really write home about. I do like the bottle cap: A silhouette of a goose -- silver on black. Very classy, and again, appeals to the wine drinker in me.

*Going back to the Frobscottle, because now I'm thinking about it: Can we have a bottle cap design contest for Frobscottle and market this stuff? I want to be able to buy it. This is a million dollar idea, people!

mystery cap!

A mystery cap! This was found at Randall's and the grape soda was sticky sweet and I think has basically turned me off of grape soda for the rest of my life.

Guesses in the comments section!