The Shopping Block

Only minutes after posting about the future of beer and the robots that will serve us, I got an email from ThinkGeek about their BeerBot Bottle Opening Shirt. Ah, robots… is there anything you won’t be able to do?

We usually dislike so many things that Brookstone sells for your grill, so it was nice to see something that looked like it might be helpful for certain types of grilling. The Turbo Que is a fan that turns your gas grill into a convection oven.

A good brass-bristled brush is essential for keeping the top of your grill grate clean. But Grillfloss is the missing tool to get to the bottom of things.

Want to be the first guy at the job site to heat his pastrami sandwich in his high-tech lunchbox? How about the only one at the office who cooks his Ramen at his desk? For me, I just want to heat a few frozen White Castle’s in my garage without my significant other knowing. Meet the WaveBox, a 600-watt, AC/DC-powered instant kitchen.

Windy City Glass are purveyors of some unique glassware. They sell 6 packs (or fewer) of Recycled Beer Bottle Drinking Glasses, including brands like Grolsh, Fat Tire, Rolling Rock, Heineken and Mickey’s.

Polluted Glasses are 10 oz. glasses shaped like a 55-gallon barrels with etched radioactive signs on them.

The Brewzer Keychain Pocket Tool from PocketToolX may be the only keychain bottle opener that you will ever need. It is made out of high-grade, long-lasting, hardened stainless steel and has a slick beer bottle shaped hole to clip it on your keyring.

Another integration of technology into our everyday bottle openers… this time, for the geeks. The Popdrive Bottle Opener has an integrated 1 GB thumb drive.

I can’t tell you how often I kick back to watch a movie with a tall, cold bottle of beer, power up the home theater, and… crap… no bottle opener. Oh, how I wish my remote control had a bottle opener in it.

About two years ago, my buddy John gave me a set of Samuel Adams Boston Lager Glasses. Since there is always some kind of Sammy A in my fridge, it’s nice to have some highly distinctive matching glasses.

Only a few years ago, Guy Fieri won the second season of The Next Food Network Star. Today this “Bad Boy” of Food Network has teamed up with the designers of Ergo Chef to create some hot rod knives with some great specs.

J&D’s Baconnaise Bacon Flavored Spread was a big hit recently when I used it as a dip for deep-fried beer-battered onion rings. A good gift… a GREAT stocking stuffer. Make it Baconnaise for the holidaise.

George Wendt is recognized world-wide for his role as Cheers barfly Norm Peterson. In his book “Drinking With George,” Wendt finds plenty of common ground with his televised alter ego.

The Beerometry t-shirt is a 100% ringspun cotton shirt from CraftBeerClothing.com. It’s proud creators say, “you will probably want to wear the shirt every day, even to church.”

The Boston Beer Company, known for many quality beer styles and a cult of craft beer that now borders on being mainstream, recently released their 2009 batch of Samuel Adams Utopias. Utopias is the flagship brew of their “extreme” beer line.