Bier Battered’s Holiday Gift Guide 2.0

Wow a whole year has gone by.  At this point I hope everyone has slept off their Thanksgiving day gorging, if not stop back later we will still be here. This year I am going to forgo the usual suggestions of T-shirts. There are so many great makers these days, just take your pick, Craft Geer, Craftbeer Hound, Hop Cloth, etc, and you won’t go wrong.

I want to bring up all new stuff (last years guide can be found here), though one gadget from last year’s guide I have to bring up again:

The Hermetus Bottle opener and resealer  I have been using this for about a year and a half now, it works flawlessly on all bottles except the ones that The Bruery uses.  Those are a little hard to pop off, due to the bigger than normal size they use. It is hardly even worn down finish wise, and not a speck of nicks or dents.  It’s good stuff.

What is up next you ask? Books. Sure we could skip right to just asking for beer, but reading about it is equally fun.

My first three picks are the  big ones, the ones if you are going to read about beer, everyone suggests:
The Oxford Companion to Beer
Garrett Oliver’s: The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food (Both of these are on my own wishlist this year),
Randy Mosher’s: Tasting Beer.

I got Tasting Beer last year, and it was a great read.  Easy to follow if you are new to beer, and thoroughly enjoyable for those who have been around for a while.  If you are a history buff this book is nearly impossible to put down.  It is available in Soft Cover and digital Downloads (for Android for sure, and I have to imagine iOS and Kindle).

If you are an IPA fan, IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale by Mitch Steele is a highly recommended reader suggested title. It also come with 48 recipes ranging from historical brews to recipes for the most popular contemporary IPAs made by Pizza Port, Dogfish Head, Stone, Firestone Walker, Russian River, and Deschutes.
I love Sour Beers, so I have to include American Sour Beers by Michael Tonsmeire (you may know him better as TheMadFermentationist.com), which came out over the summer. If you are a homebrewer and have an itch for the funky stuff this is a must have.
John Holl’s: The American Craft Beer Cookbook All this reading about beer, may have made you a bit peckish, so now it’s time to cook with it!  I saw him talk at last winters Big Brewfest when this book came out. I should have picked it up then, but it is also on my list.

Burritos..  I was told this was an acceptable gift request, and I am sticking too it..

Finally, why not, you have waited long enough: Beer.  Now it could stuff that is gettable where you or your relatives live, but you / they cant get locally.  Perhaps though you want something a little more exotic.  Or at least from the Mountain or Pacific Times Zones?

If that is the case: look no further than Inside the Cellar. As of this writing there are around 76 beers available.  Some depending on where you are gettable in stores, but at least for New Jersey, there is a whole lot of choices of stuff you would either need to go a state or two over to get if at all.

The prices look good, cans being maybe slightly pricer than if you could by them locally, (must are around $4 a can).  There is free shipping if you order 12 bottles, so if you are buying for yourself and some other people  you can avoid shipping.  I have had several friends and family use them, and all of talk has been glowing.

If you are wondering, Inside the Cellar ships to: AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE GA, FL, HI, ID, IL, IA, IN, LA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NJ, NV, NY, NM, NC, ND, OH, OR, RI, SC, TN, TX VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, and WY.  There are also gift cards!