Black Friday. It’s a day of dread for many. For others, it’s a definitive signal that Santa Clause is already greasing the steel struts on his sleigh. It’s gift giving time, and for that special person in your life who is a beer geek, we have some ideas.
Often it can be hard to know what to get your partner, friend or parent. Many of us are so lucky that we have all, or most, of the things we need. And spending money at that trendy sock store downtown just doesn’t seem right. So, what could prove worthwhile? How about some items that will be conducive to an experience, an event, a night together around a table, sipping suds and telling secrets into the late winter night?
Tavour
When I was in college, all I wanted was someone to deliver me crappy cheap beer so I wouldn’t have to leave my apartment and go into the cold and pick out a six-pack to drink while studying Socrates. That beer delivery, for me, never came. But now, it exists!
Tavour is a Seattle-based company that delivers hand-picked artisan craft beer to your door. The service, which stocks about ten mind-blowing options at any given time, can be accessed by going to their web site or downloading their app. And it serves it’s home state of Washington as well as twelve other states from California to New York.
For a gift, we recommend setting up an account and having the beer delivered to your loved one. Pick from barley wines, imperial IPA’s, saisons, Christmas ales and hopped reds. Surprise someone who loves beer with options they’d never be able to get from bottle shops where they live. Want an imperial stout from California but live in Denver? Tavour has you covered.
Glassware From True Beer
You ever come out of the kitchen holding two ‘glasses’ of champagne poured into blue plastic Solo cups? Yeah, that feeling sucks. And it’s the same thing when you are trying to impress someone and you’re holding a beer poured into water glass.
But avid beer drinkers can avoid this altogether with a few nifty pick-ups from TrueBeer. It’s a little known fact that some beers require certain glasses. Lambics drink well in tall flutes to keep the flavor; Trappists prefer squat, wide glasses so that they can breathe; and some pale ales just look damn cool out of a mason jar.
You can now get all of these varieties and more with the simple click of a button, plus have them shipped to your — or your loved one’s — door for the holidays. *Clink, cheers!*
The Brewer’s Tale
Part of appeal of being an avid beer drinker is learning about the history of the concoction. How did beer sustain early people? How did the brewing process grow from simple beer to nuanced saisons? In The Brewer’s Tale, readers can find all about it.
Author William Bostwick goes through a number of origin stories for different brewer types: from monks to farmers to the early days when women ruled the beer industry from their kitchens. The book is a fantastic pastiche of brewers and brewing history and should be given to any beer-interested scholar.
