Beerscovery Quiz Card Game
$19.99, peertobeer.net/shop
Education can be fun when there’s a bit of friendly competition involved, but beer trivia games are time-intensive to create yourself. This deck of 100 cards with questions and answers from Charles Nouwen, an experienced brewmaster and brewing consultant, ranges across the wide world of beer, from brewing arcana to glassware and some of the more whimsical aspects of beer culture. If your goal is to get teams working together and solving problems, this game should make for a great icebreaker activity without the need to spend hours digging up good (and accurate) questions and answers of your own.
If you need some structure to an evening at the brewery with friends, or you’re looking for another beer-centric way to entertain guests in the taproom, sets of these cards offer a fun way for guests to challenge each other. Some questions are dead simple, others require more brewing knowledge, but the combination of technical knowhow, pop culture, and historical knowledge makes the deck broad enough for different types of beer fans.
Bouncer ProD Inline Filter
$135.95, bouncer.beer
The sheer amount of stuff we put into beer these days necessitates an incredible amount of cleaning, and let’s be honest—some things are easier to clean that others. That’s the thinking behind the new Bouncer ProD inline filter, a riff on their standard filter ostensibly marketed to distillers (as it can handle the high alcohol content of distilled spirits) but also perfect for brewers who need a filter that can handle hot-side liquid at up to 212°F (100°C). Want to pre-filter wort to clear out hop matter before it hits your chiller? Or pack in some herbs for a quick infusion at knockout? The ProD has you covered.
Like the standard Bouncer Pro, it features three different screens of graduated fineness (950 microns, 304 microns, and 40 microns) so you can dial in optimal flow to filtration, or you can run multiples in-line for a staged approach. The increased temperature range precludes the clear housing of the regular Pro model, but it maintains the same basic structure and ease of breakdown and cleaning.
Whether you’re a professional distiller filtering out barrel char when racking out barrels, a homebrewer tired of getting hops lodged in your plate chiller, or any brewer infusing a small but potent ingredient in knockout, the ProD fits a particular use case at a reasonable price point that makes it a useful tool.
Brown Beer, Brown Beer, What Do You See?
By Joe Quinlin & Josh Graves, $10, thebigfriendly.com
Anyone with young kids is familiar with the ubiquitous children’s book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, so this humorous take from the folks behind Oklahoma City brewery the Big Friendly has broad appeal. Perfect as a gift for those beer-loving friends who are expecting, it hits all the notes, from the color-driven narrative to the hefty board-book format. However, the best feature is the double-take it ensures when the recipient realizes what you’ve just given.
The Book of Hops
By Dan DiSorbo, $27.50, Ten Speed Press
Need a gift for that hophead in your life, or are you just looking for a beautifully photographed coffee-table book that signifies your love of beer? This photo-driven volume from Dan DiSorbo is reasonably deep in its broad explanation of what hops are and how they work, and it offers some hop-by-hop history and detail perfect for that beer lover who just loves Citra hops but doesn’t know why. The photos make the book—juicy hop eye candy abounds.