Adult Beverages & Gear

Get Your Tickets for the Great American Beer Festival!

If you have a love for hops and tasty craft-brewed adult beverages, then no doubt you’ve heard of The Great American Beer Festival, an event put on by the Brewer’s Association which has become the largest and best known of its kind. The Great American Beer Festival is the premier U.S. beer festival and competition. Each year, GABF represents the largest collection of U.S. beer ever served, in the format of a public tasting event plus a private competition. GABF brings together the brewers and beers that make the U.S. the world’s greatest brewing nation. This event showcases the diverse…


Drink Like a Winner with a Gold Medal Bottle Opener

I am extremely excited for the upcoming Summer Olympics. Winter Olympics are ok, but summer is the best. Track and field, beach volleyball, swimming, beach volleyball, gymnastics, and did I mention beach volleyball? Now, I am not so excited as to celebrate with a themed party (full disclosure: we did that in college for the winter Olympics, and let’s just say it was sort of like “The Hangover” but with mystery IHOP receipts instead of casino ones). But if you do, you need to fully commit to it, and Gadgets and Gear has you covered with a medal-style bottle opener:…


Keep Your Beer Cool and Your Tunes Loud with the Marshall Fridge

This Marshall Fridge is pretty amazing. It looks like an Marshall amp, but it hides something tastier than great tunes. Yeah, it holds a few six packs or anything else that you might need to keep cold — although beer is much more fun than milk. As the description on Werd notes, You’re never going to play guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughn or Slash but if you shred 6-packs like they shred six strings, the Marshall Fridge will be the perfect addition to your pad. It looks like the iconic Marshall stack amp but it’s really a 4.4 cubic foot…


Just Chill Out with Bottle on Ice Wine Cooler

Contrary to popular belief, you’re not supposed to drink red wine at room temperature or white wine straight out of the refrigerator. Most whites taste best after being allowed to warm up about twenty minutes after being removed from the fridge, and your better Chardonnays and White Burgundies really shine at cellar temperature, which is about 55°. Red wines generally drink best at close to 65°, which unless you live in my grandparents’ old house, probably is a bit colder than room temperature. So the easy rule of thumb is to take white wine out of the refrigerator twenty minutes…


Starbucks Asks: Venti, Grande, Tall, or Cabernet Sauvignon?

Sure, you hit your local Starbucks for coffee, morning after bleary-eyed morning. And maybe on weekends, you sit with the paper and a nice latte, people watching and catching up on the news. Pretty soon you’ll be able to add happy hour to the list! Starbucks is adding alcohol to several stores as a test run, which in theory sounds like an intriguing idea. After dinner drinks like “Irish coffee” would be a great fit for a cafe. But according to Bloomberg, Starbucks is apparently aiming for the after-work drinkers: Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — Starbucks Corp., the world’s largest coffee-shop…



Put Down the Pinot – Turns Out the ‘Red Wine is Good for You’ Report Was Falsified!

I have been a red wine lover since … well, forever it seems. I have always known that moderation in all things is key, that too much of a good thing is never a good thing. I never assumed that any amount of alcohol was beneficial, so when the study came out a while ago about the possible benefits of moderate red wine consumption … well I was thrilled. Turns out the victory dances were premature, as the researcher behind the study has just been found guilty of “145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data”.


Convenient Gadgets’ Bottle Opener Fridge Magnet Review

If you drink a lot of mass-produced cold beverages that come in bottles with twist caps, then you probably don’t often need a bottle opener. Similarly, if you drink a lot of beverages that come in aluminum cans, then you might have a bottle opener … located somewhere in your junk drawer. But if you like to drink bottled-beverages that don’t easily twist open, or if you regularly run into twist-caps that don’t seem to loosen easily, then you no doubt keep several bottle openers placed around your kitchen and back patio … and you have probably had moments when you have not been…


A Gear Diary Taste Test Fest: mBerries, the Miracle Fruit That Changes the Way You Experience Food!

Imagine a fruit that could change the way food taste for the better but whose effects were only temporary. Imagine if Lemons and limes tasted sweet, pickles tasted like slightly salty cucumbers and more. That’s what Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) does. The plant is native to West Africa and available in a number of forms. It is: an evergreen plant that produces small red berries which are produced for many months in a year. The seeds are about the size of coffee beans. The berry is sweet, and contains an active glycoprotein molecule called miraculin along with some carbohydrate chains. Miracle…


Click n Drink Bottle Opener Catches Your Caps and Protects Your Feet

How would you like to open your beer and soda bottles without having to worry about where those pointy bottle caps land? The ‘Click n Drink’ bottle opener allows you to do just that. Boasting the ability to hold up to 100 bottle caps with its strong magnets, the ‘Click n Drink’ magnetically mounts to metal surfaces or it can be drilled into others. I’m wondering if it would void our hot tub’s warranty to screw one to its side; if it means being able to pop a bottle of Spaten without worrying about stepping on a cap later, I…


Would You Take the Beer or the iPad?

screenshot from of the Eldorado Success 03/31/11 digital edition One of the joys of living in a small town is that the local paper publishes the police blotter every week; it’s always good for an unintentional chuckle, because some of the things people call 911 for are things you would never see in a larger city. Whether it be a black bull loose on the side of the road at the county line, hit and run doorbell ringing, or people who call for help but then refuse to say what they need — there’s always something sure to raise an…


Apple ‘Wins’ Product Placement Award for 2010

Tracking Apple products in shows is somewhat of a hobby for many folks, and we even did a number of ‘Apple on TV’ posts here at Gear Diary. Of course, Apple is just one of many companies that spend heavily to get their products featured prominently in TV shows and movies, and keeping in the spirit of awards season the folks at BrandChannel have compiled their annual ‘Product Placement Awards’ … and not surprisingly Apple has come out on top again. Here are some details from the award: Apple products appeared in ten (or 30%) of the 33 films that…


VinniBag Review

I am not a wine connoisseur at all.  However, back in the day I was into drinking good beers.  I remember one trip where I visited a Rock Bottom Brewery restaurant where I had some of the best beer I have ever tasted.  They had beer that I could have taken home in bottles, but because I flew into Denver and was flying out the next day, I could not take any home with me.  If I had the VinniBag it would have been a piece of cake! VinniBag is a wine bottle-shaped bag that has a few interesting features.  First, it…


BottomsUP Beer Might Be the Coolest Thing I’ve Ever Seen

A company called GrinOn Industries has created one of the coolest beverage accessories I’ve ever seen.  They’ve designed and fabricated what they call the “Bottoms Up Draft Beer Dispensing System.”  The  proprietary Bottoms Up Dispensing System is the fastest dispensing system in the world and fills at a rate of up to nine times that of traditional beer taps. The system isn’t only a marvel to watch but it’s pretty cost-effective too.  The company claims because of its super fast delivery speed (videos on their web site show them pouring off up to 56 beers in a minute) that it…


iBottleOpener for iPhone 3GS Review

I like beer. This is a fact that I didn’t realize until about two and a half years ago, when I began dating a man who was a home-brewer and all-around beer connoisseur. I’d never really been much of a beer drinker before, so I never had much need for a bottle opener; that has since changed. There are so many fantastic brews available — none of which come with twist-cap, so being able to safely and easily remove a bottle cap when offered a new brew is a necessity. Therein lies the rub: I don’t carry a Leatherman or…


Home Gear Review: Larry G Checks Out The BottleMate

I drink a lot of microbrews. One of the challenges anyone who does often faces is the dilemma, “is it a twist-off or not”. The last thing you want to do on a hot summer afternoon is struggle to get the top off your ice cold beer. With the BottleMate there isn’t even a need to guess. The BottleMate is touted as the world’s best bottle opener. It claims to easily and effortless open bottles in a manner that will have your friends bowing in amazement. The BottleMate fits over the top of most bottles and in one swift motion…


Can I Get You a Soda … er … Pop … er … ?!?!

Being from suburban Boston, I was surprised when I went to school in upstate NY and befriended some kids from outside of Pittsburgh PA and found that not everyone wanted a ‘soda’ … some wanted a ‘pop’. Later on, when traveling to the deep south for my first job I was asked if I wanted a ‘coke’ (or sweet tea, of course), to which I asked if they had Diet Coke. I was told they had all sorts of coke, including Pepsi, Orange, Root Beer … you get the picture. Fact is, where you are from will determine what generic…


Never Miss a Minute of the Game to Open a Brew!

It is March Madness, the game is coming to a close and yet another of your bracket picks is about to fall.  You do not want to miss the last second shot from the latest 14th seed Cinderella story.  If you are like me, there will now be three or four bracket pools that will need to be paid up soon.  As a tear goes into your beer, you notice one last sip.  This is no time to be hunting that bottle opener!  Another brew needs to be opened quickly to serve as a celebration for a miracle that keeps…


These Cufflinks Will Open That Beer for You

Nothing says classy like a set of cufflinks, and nothing says Redneck more than drinking your beer out of a bottle at a formal occasion. There’s no need to confirm that Redneck stereotype when a bottle opener isn’t handy by  slamming your bottle’s lid on a table edge, using the top of your Skoal can, or worse – prying the bottle cap off with your teeth. Leave the other guests guessing by wearing these bottle opener cufflinks from CuffLinks.com. They’re made of stainless steel so they’ll keep their shape through thousands of cap removals, and you can get them for…


Motorcycle Grip Opener Pops Bottle Tops with Authentic Revving Sound

Why rip open beer bottles with your teeth when this talking motorcycle grip bottle opener can make the experience more entertaining. Using the grip you’ll be able to remove the cap while listening to a cheesy revving sound. Great gift for the beer drinking Hells Angel wannabe in your life. Talking Motorcycle Grip Bottle Opener via Nerd Approved


Lose That Beer Gut and Get Ript with This T-Shirt Girdle for Guys

While the advertising claims this is a “torso enhancing” undershirt – I say it’s not much more than a $58 t-shirt girdle (Crew or V-Neck available) for guys with a gut. The site claims this body-sculpting undershirt is designed to support your core – though I suspect it’s worn mostly by guy’s who think a Core is a single can of Coors. RipT via Book of Joe