The Most Wonderful Time for a Beer: Gifts for Your Holiday Season
The holiday season is in full swing, and if you’re like me, you’ve woken up and realized that this whole gift thing is going to go down at the last minute. Again. Plus ça change. No worries, though. You’ll find something quite easily, given the astounding selection of beer-related wares for just about any budget. Here are a few ideas for you.
Hop Cone Lamp. $79/$119
What better time to update that tired old chandelier hanging over your dining room table with a hanging lamp that’ll make you think of the Hallertau or the Yakima Valley? With its understated elegance, VITA Copenhagen’s Conia lamp is sure to please more than just the hophead in your family. Umage has a “mini” version available for $79, but your hophead friend or family member might prefer a dining room or living room that’s massively hopped. You can do that for 40 bux more — about the price of a few NEIPA 4-packs these days.
Growler Keg. $149; copper-plated option: $169
Great for road trips, and perfect for homebrewers who want to pull some beer off their kegs for club outings or friends in far-flung places. The uKeg 64 is a bit pricey at first blush, but the folks at GrowlerWerks have put some thought into this setup. The growler cap doubles as a CO2 regulator, and you can dial in your carbonation up to 15 psi. This double-walled stainless steel growler even comes equipped with a sight glass and a customizable tap handle. Choose from the copper finish (my personal fave should anyone want to buy me one) or the stainless steel finish. Sixty-four ounces not enough? Go all in on the gallon-sized version. Your friends won’t complain when you show up with an entire gallon of chilled and perfectly carbonated beer.
Holiday Scents from Beerloved: Craft Beer Soap, $7.50; Brew Candle, $20
Personally, the last thing I need when I wake up with a holiday hangover is a shower with a soap that smells like the porter or oatmeal stout that caused said disturbance. But apparently beer-scented gifts are popular. And who knows? Your beloved beer enthusiast may actually like the scent of a pine and citrus-inflected IPA candle adding a little seasonal cheer. Now if only Beerloved sold beer-scented beard cream … .
Literature on Tap. The Curiosities of Ale & Beer (1889). Prices vary
When John Bickerdyke sat down to write The Curiosities of Ale & Beer, he was astounded to find that “no comprehensive work on the antiquities of ale and beer has found place.” Writing in the waning years of the nineteenth century, Bickerdyke attempted to preserve a long history of customs that had barely survived the Industrial Revolution. The result is a treasure trove of beer lore that traces the evolution of beer and brewing from ancient Egypt through the late 1800s, illuminating virtually every aspect of beer’s vibrant history along the way: ancient drinking vessels; old recipes; the development of beer laws and regulations; the origins of the tavern; the trials and tribulations of hop growers pickers; hospitality in medieval times; ale-wives; the importance of ale for agricultural labourers and the nascent working class; the emergence of porter and stout; and the rise of temperance. Ballads, poems, and songs abound. You’ll hear tales of Sir John Barleycorn, “the excesses of the clergy,” “old medical writers on ale,” and “ancient merry-makings, feasts and ceremonies peculiar to certain seasons, at which ale was the principal drink.” Pour yourself a fine Russian imperial stout or a barleywine and enjoy the ride.
Homebrewing Starter Kit. $99
If you need to give your friend or significant other a nudge to start brewing, the good folks at High Gravity in Tulsa have the basics to get you started. Beware, though: once your friend or family member is hooked, you might find yourself investing in more than just a few buckets and hoses to satiate the manic passion for the hobby your gift will unleash. Should that happen, High Gravity also sells Porsche-level electric brewing systems. (Bonus points: High Gravity is independently owned.)
Beer Fermenters as Interior Design. $899.00
Who doesn’t want one of these super-cool house decorations from Ss brewtech? You don’t even need to be a homebrewer! Just stick the 7-gallonUnitank where you’d normally put a baby grand piano and you’ll be the epitome of twenty-first century steam punk chic. First, though, you might have to plant a few trees of the money variety so you can afford this handy gadget that features a lid-mounted immersion chiller coil for temp control, along with the ability to carbonate in-vessel. For those of us who can’t afford the Unitank this time around, Ss brewtech makes a more affordable stainless steel 3.5-gallon “brew bucket mini” fermenter for $129.
Stocking Stuffers. Notebooks, $5; bottle openers, $6.99
At the end of the day, you already know that you don’t need to spend several hundreds of dollars to make your friends or loved ones happy. Sometimes a simple notebook will do. The 33Bottles of Beer Tasting Journal makes the perfect stocking stuffer for the budding beer judge or beer sommelier in your life. It’s made with recycled materials and soy-based inks, so you get some environmental karma out of the act of gift-giving as well. The notebook even has a flavour wheel to help you key in on a beer’s profile.
You probably don’t need another bottle opener. Or maybe you do. Especially one that doesn’t bend the cap. With the HQYMagnet-Automatic Beer Bottle Opener, soon you, too, will be able to join the ranks of all those top-tier Instagramers — or just fill up another corner of the house with boxes full of bottle caps. At least they take up less space than bottles and cans. Perfect for the closet bottle cap collector in your life.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
*Disclaimer: I plugged a few friends in this article but received no financial incentives to do so. You could say that my compensation is seeing them continue to thrive.
More Tempest Gift Ideas and Seasonal Posts
Holiday Gift Ideas for the Craft Beer Enthusiast
Gift Ideas for the Craft Beer-Drinking Bookworm
Spreading Good Cheer with a Tankard of Mulled Beer
The Fonduementals of Beer and Cider: Recipes to Warm Your Weekend
Dining Down the Holiday Stretch: Choucroute à la Gueuze
Sources/Images
Most images from the respective sites of merchants mentioned or linked to in this post.
© 2018 F.D. Hofer and A Tempest in a Tankard. All rights reserved.
Could use a new lamp and this looks a lot lik
e our non-hop one.
Maybe you have the same lamp. Or maybe it’s a similar design like one I saw at a craft beer bar in Vienna. I’d post a photo of that lamp here if I could figure out how to insert photos into WordPress comments. The one I listed in this post isn’t actually called a hop lamp, but when I saw it at a contemporary furniture shop, I immediately thought of hops.
Funny, thought it looked very similar. Ours is supposed to be an artichoke I think.