If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Guinness from a can will soon pour like Guinness from a tap. Thanks to a plate-shaped device called the “Surger.”

Guinness wholesalers are on the verge of placing the $25 unit into bars that serve the Irish import from the bottle or can rather than from the tap. After Guinness is poured into a glass, the pint is placed on the Surger. The bartender pushes a button to activate sound waves, which pass through the liquid creating gas bubbles and ultimately the familiar cascading effect typical of a Guinness pint poured from draught we all know and love.

“It gives me a new talking point that I can bring to my customers, which is good for us,” one U.S. wholesaler said.

Guinness has long secured tap handles in bars around the world, but has been trying to lift its packaged beer, which currently sees less than steller sales. Efforts have included the 2001 introduction of Guinness Draught in a Bottle, nicknamed in the trade as “the $13 million bottle”. That figure referred to the research, development and testing expense behind the Rocket Widget inside that released nitrogen with each pour.

Although one wholesaler on the east coast complained that his fulfillment of Surger orders has been delayed, he likes the idea and foresees the Surger eventually becoming available to consumers so they can drink a draught-like Guinness at home.

Popularity: 7% [?]

The new Cold Cavern Beer Froster may be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard of! This beer freezer is designed to keep your beer “chilled to the optimal temperature”, which is apparently 24 degrees Fahrenheit. That is, of course, below freezing, so you’ll have a frosted bottle (and probably slushy beer) waiting for you at all times. If you’re the type of person who drinks “American-style light lagers” (i.e. Bud Light, Miller Light, Coors Light), then you probably like your beer almost painfully cold; if thats the case, this will be the perfect gift for you. But if you like, you know, good beers served properly, you’ll want to stick with a standard fridge, since this one will certainly freeze the flavor right out of a decent beer.

As I’m sure many readers know, the coldest a beer should be served is 40-45 degrees for lagers; which is about about standard fridge temp. Darker lagers and wheat beers should be served at around 48 degrees, and ales should be served at about 50-55 degrees (so should take those out of the fridge and let them sit for a few minutes before drinking). Belgian beers, on the other hand, should be served closer to room temperature.

If the MSRP of $1050 doesn’t scare you off, the fact that the Cold Cavern Beer Froster will ruin any decent beer you drink, and make you look like a fool (sorry if thats a little too harsh), certainly should. If you want to see the product page anyway (it’s worth a good chuckle, at least), click here.

Popularity: 5% [?]

A story from the Wall Street Journal this week reported a growing number of young entrepreneurs taking advantage of the popularity of beer pong, a drinking game prevalent on college campuses. As we all know, the game typically doesn’t require much in terms of equipment (a few ping-pong balls, red Solo cups, a little bit of clean water and a whole lot of beer). But even so, Northwestern University graduates Andy Wright and Mike Johnson recently started selling rubber mats designed to prevent cups from toppling over and spilling precious beer; and business is good! And it doesn’t stop there, the WSJ article described several other beer pong business ventures from current and former college students, including portable tables and apparel. While many colleges across the country have already banned similar products, the beer pong craze is still going strong. Billy Gaines and Duncan Carroll, grads from Carnegie Mellon University and the creators of bpong.com, even hosted the first World Series of Beer Pong last year.

Editor’s Note: We here at Blog About Beer still maintain that the game so popular across college campuses should be referred to as Beirut; beer pong, by definition, is played with ping-pong paddles and is technically an entirely different game. Thank You. 

Popularity: 5% [?]

 

Homebrewer-turned-inventor John Carnett has spent weeks building what he simply refers to as The Device. What is said devide? A stainless-steel, two-cart extract brewing system that starts by boiling the wort and ends with a chilled pint.

As many of our readers know, in most home-brewing extract setups, each step in the process requires moving the beer to a new container by hand, which increases the chance of contamination or, if nothing else, at the very least requires you to lift stuff. Carnett’s machine keeps everything in the carts’ closed system and requires only that he swap a few CO₂-pressurized hoses to move the liquid along. It also employs a complex temperature-control system to regulate the fermentation (often done in a corner of a basement) to within a degree or two. A couple weeks later, the same system chills the beer on its way from keg to tap, so The Device is always ready with a cold pour and consumes no power when it’s not serving or fermenting.

So, how much damage does The Device currently inflict on your wallet? Only a small $4,315 *cough* And what’s next for Carnett?  He plans on adding a third cart to make wort from raw grain instead of extract. But, says Carnett, there’s a lot of “testing” of this design to be done first. Click here for a YouTube video below to see Carnett’s Device in action.

[image via popsci.com]

Popularity: 7% [?]