It’s getting to be that time of year again. Tis the season for giant blow-up Santas, awkward family encounters, and grown adults pulling each other’s hair to get a deal on a TV. Since Black Friday is a week from today (and Cyber Monday follows it), we decided to put out a list of a few homebrew-related gift ideas. Whether you’re a brewer and don’t know what you want, or your favorite brewer has sent you this link a few times, hopefully we can assist in making this Christmas a very happy one indeed. Also, just in case you haven’t been bulking up or doing wind sprints in preparation for Melee Shopping Day, we’ve embedded links to some of this stuff to allow you to do your shopping safely and with a beer in hand.
Beginner kit: If
your homebrewing loved one isn’t quite homebrewing yet, what better time to
start than now? Heck, chances are they’ll
even have time to get it started before Christmas vacation is over!
Brewing books:
Because why not? We could all read a
little more, might as well get smart about beer making.
Ingredient kits:
Brewers love to brew. So give them
something to brew! There are several
advantages here. For one, you can
craftily dictate what gets brewed next, while simultaneously getting cool
points for basically providing an excuse to hold a brew day. Also, the boxes are typically perfect size to
fit under the tree. Make sure you get either extract or all grain kits depending on your brewer's setup.
Carboy: A glass
or plastic carboy is a nice addition to any homebrew setup. A 5-gallon variant is great for secondary
fermentation, and if your brewer needs a new primary fermentor a 6.5-gallon
works nicely.
Carboy dryer: For
me, this is one of those things that I would never actually buy for myself, yet
a great idea and something I would use all the time if I had one. Typically that’s what makes for a great
Christmas gift right?
Carboy carrier:
There’s the nylon strap version and the handle version. This is the same type of situation as the
dryer, for me at least.
Wort chiller: A
wort chiller is a phenomenal addition to any brewday. It makes the cooling process so much faster,
you get a good cold break, and it’s a cool looking gadget. I’ve cooled in many different ways, but the
chiller is by far the best.
Burner: Whether
you dislike the smell of brewday or simply hate adding heat to your house in
the middle of summer, a propane burner is a great way to get brew day pushed
outside. Plus, if upgrading to all-grain
brewing is anywhere on the horizon, a burner is a serious asset.
New pot:
Personally, I started out with the cheapest pot I could find with the required
volume. As I grew in to the hobby I
realized that I could definitely do better.
The stainless steel pots are really nice to work with, plus this is a
good opportunity to up the size of the pot to enable full batch boils! There are a lot of fancy options that can go
with a new pot. I would recommend going
for the thermometer and ball valve additions to add some serious capability for
not terribly much extra cost.
Mash tun: Maybe
your homebrewing loved one has been talking about upgrading to all grain for a
while. Maybe they’ve gotten things like
a bigger pot and a burner already and a mash tun is the last piece. What would make Christmas better than the
last piece of the puzzle? There are many
different methods to make your own mash tun, one of which we hope to cover at
some point in the future, but the ready-to-go tuns are really nice as well.
Hop filter screen:
I’ve only recently seen these things in homebrew stores, but it is kind of a
neat idea, especially for dry-hopping.
It would be nice to keep some of the hop floaters out of the beer, but
it’s one of those things I don’t know that I’d buy for myself (again, great
gift idea).
Mash paddle:
Technically a mash paddle is for stirring the mash (a step only performed in
all grain brewing), but even if your brewer is still doing extract, it makes a
pretty awesome brew spoon. Just saying.
Flip-top bottles:
If your brewer is still bottling, a few of these are nice to have because you
can sanitize the top and the bottle at the same time, and you don’t have to
mess with the capper.
Growlers:
Growlers are always handy to have.
Whether you enjoy getting them filled at the local brewery or you just
like to share homebrew, it’s always nice to be able to haul around a couple of
half-gallon jugs of beer.
Bottle dryer: Though
there are many DIY solutions to the bottle drying problem, the bottle drying tree is a pretty nifty little thing to have to make bottling day go just that
much smoother.
Keg system: Maybe
your brewer is tired of bottling. Maybe
you’re tired of getting roped in to help.
Either way, a keg system would be an awesome gift!
Beer gun: If you’ve
already got the keg system covered, the beer gun is an awesome little gadget
that allows for easy, relatively clean bottling from the keg. So, if you keg your homebrew, but want to
bring a six pack to a tailgate, this is the answer!
Perlick faucets:
Maybe your brewer’s taps get stuck from time to time. Maybe they’re kind of a pain to clean. The Perlick faucets don’t expose the beer to
oxygen, so they never get sticky!
And finally, if your homebrewing loved one has been really good this year, then maybe it’s
time to pull out all the stops and get them a top notch completely awesome
brewing system like this one from Blichmann.
Who needs a Lexus with a bow on it when you can have one of these bad
boys?
Hopefully this helps with some Christmas shopping, helps a
few brewers get what they really want for Christmas, and ultimately helps in
furthering the craft of homebrewing. I think we can all raise a Christmas ale to that!
Cheers,
Jacob
No comments:
Post a Comment