Stumped on what to get that person on your list who seems to already have it all? Looking for something a little less generic and a little more special? Here are some unique gift ideas that are sure to stand out from the rest.

Buy this Gift for Someone Who is Really Into Modern Decoration

Nanoleaf is a company that makes light panels which can be configured into any design as well as any of 16 million color options. No drilling is required (ideal for apartment dwellers) and you can even enable touch options to trigger specific smart home features via HomeKit.

• MSRP: $199 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $159

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Buy This Gift for Someone Who Really Loves Their Dog

While the Human DNA fad is still going strong, the Puppy DNA fad has really just started to warm up. The Embark Dog DNA Test Kit tests for more than 250 dog breeds as well as a variety of diseases. Creating a family tree on the site, Embark will show your dog’s family tree all the way back to great-grandparents.

• MSRP: $199 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $140

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Buy This Gift for Someone Who Hates Walking

While the hoverboard fad has cooled off somewhat, the Segway has gotten smaller and more affordable over time. The Segway miniLITE is a self balancing personal transporter that’s easier to balance on and provides a smoother ride than other transporters. It pulls 4.5 star out of 5 star reviews on Amazon.

• MSRP: $399 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $200

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Buy This Gift for Someone Who’s a Germaphobe

Featured on Shark Tank a few seasons ago, this device uses UV light to destroy all the microscopic germs living on your smartphone. In addition to that, the PhoneSoap 3 UV sanitizer also charges your phone, ideal for a nightstand. Pop your phone in at night and you will have a fully charged, germ free phone in the morning.

• MSRP: $60 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: $40

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Buy This Gift for Someone Who Lives on the Ski Slopes

Do you know someone that races up the mountain every weekend to ski or snowboard? They clearly need the Beardski Prospector Ski Mask, a surprisingly well made, waterproof ski mask that offers a thermal fleece neck as well as vented neoprene for the mouth and chin. Attaining a 4.5 out of 5 star rating on Amazon, it gets high marks for comfort and warmth.

• MSRP: $17 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

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Buy This Gift for Someone that Loves DIY Projects

Combining the moulding flexibility of play-dough and the strength of silicone rubber, the Sugru Hardware Sealer is a product that can be formed by hand and allowed to set in any form overnight. It also attaches to almost anything, making it ideal for any DIY project.

• MSRP: $22 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: n/a

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Buy This Gift for the Serious Carnivore

The BBQ Branding Iron is a unique gift option for the meat-loving person who hates things like “vegan bacon” as much as Ron Swanson. The branding iron set comes with every letter of the alphabet so that grillers can sear everyone’s names onto their respective pieces of meat (or just the letters L-A-M-E onto any veggie burger they’re forced to cook).

• MSRP: $17 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Amazon for BBQ Branding Iron

Buy This Gift for a Board Game Fanatic

Ideal for a dedicated game room or perhaps even a kid’s room (assuming they love word jumbles), the Giant Wall Scrabble board is a massive version of the game that we all grew up with. The large wood tiles are held to the board with magnets. There’s also a chalkboard on the right side of the game board to keep score.

MSRP: $1,200 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Pottery Barn for Wall Scrabble

Buy This Gift for the Beer Connoisseur

Anyone who likes drinking beer will probably already have a collection of pint glasses, but most of them probably don’t have a set of pint glasses with their name on them. The Set of 4 Personalized Pub Glasses from Personal Creations can be customized with the name, state, and date of establishment of your friend or family member’s home bar or basement brewery. Personal Creations also has a bunch of other personalized craft beer/pub gifts; pair any of them with a nice six-pack or growler and you’ve got a great, one-of-a-kind gift.

MSRP: $50 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Red Envelope for Pub Glasses

Buy This Gift for the Totally Unique Hipster

Toms Shoes are already about as hip as you can get. But there’s one way to give them even more hipster cred: making sure no one else will ever have the exact same pair. You can get custom Toms on Etsy for around $100 (about twice the cost of normal Toms). You can get pretty much anything you can think of — from sports teams, to classic art pieces, to Disney characters, to movies, and everything in between — hand-painted on your Toms.

MSRP: N/A | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Etsy for Custom Toms

Buy This Gift for the Book-Loving Child (or Child at Heart)

Books are always a great gift idea for kids, but let’s be honest — they just aren’t all that exciting to open up on Christmas morning. But the collection of pop-up books from Matthew Reinhart can hardly be called books. They are so cool, so unlike any other book you’ve ever seen before, that kids might just get more excited about them than the toys they get.

Titles include Transformers, Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs, DC Superheroes, The Chronicles or Narnia, The Jungle Book, and Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy (most are currently around $25 on Amazon). I own the Star Wars and Dinosaur books and they are ridiculously awesome and entertaining.

MSRP: $30 | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Amazon for Matthew Reinhart Pop-Up Books

Buy This Gift for the Person Who Doesn’t Need More Stuff

Sometimes, the best gift you can give someone is something that’s not easily wrapped in a box: an experience; a memory. For the person who already has all the “stuff” they want or need, a gift certificate for a night of fun can be a great, unique option. For the creative type, how about one of those “wine and canvas” places (where you learn how to create a painting while getting tipsy on wine)? For the foodie, try cooking classes. Or go crazy and get them skydiving lessons. Groupon has tons of these types of activities and more (check their Occasions section for the best holiday options).

MSRP: N/A | Lowest Price on Ben’s: N/A

Check Groupon for Activity Gift Cards

12 Really Unique Gifts for People Who are Tough to Please

If you’re a big fan of the Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookies, you may be in a bit of a depressed mood right now. Cookie selling season is over, and by this point your kids have probably discovered all of your hiding places for the extra Thin Mints. Like a plague of locusts, they’ve eliminated your stash of cookies.

So if you’re jones-ing for Thin Mints, and you can’t wait until next January and February, don’t seek out a black market for Girl Scouts cookies. Instead, we have the answer: Thick Mint beer.

Yes, it’s what it sounds like. It’s basically Thin Mint cookie beer.

The Southern Tier Brewing Company of Lakewood, N.Y., introduced Thick Mint this spring. It’s an imperial stout style of beer that’s part of Southern Tier’s Blackwater Series of beers.

Thick Mint offers both a chocolate and mint taste. It has an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 10%.

As Southern Tier is a regional brewer, you can’t find Thick Mint everywhere in the United States. The Southern Tier web site has a search function to help you find places where Thick Mint is available, along with its other beers.

You’ll have a better shot of finding Thick Mint in the eastern half of the United States in 12- or 22-ounce bottles. The brewer even offers mini kegs of Thick Mint.

As you would expect, Thick Mint has no affiliation with the Girl Scouts. (On its web site, Southern Tier says Thick Mint is inspired by Thin Mint cookies.) But if you want to have a Thick Mint with dessert, perhaps with a certain minty and chocolaty cookie, it’d almost certainly be the perfect pairing.

Love Thin Mint Cookies? Try Thick Mint Beer — It’s Basically Thin Mint Cookie Beer

Green is always the theme for St. Patrick’s Day. Wear green, or risk the wrath of painful pinching. It’s the one night you can drink green beer and fit right in at the bar. And when it comes to saving some green by throwing your own holiday party, try our best cheap St. Patrick’s Day party ideas!

Drinks, Alcoholic

Try these ideas to serve fun alcoholic drinks on a budget at your St. Paddy’s party.

• Green Beer: When it comes to making green beer, you can try a few different methods — experiment on your own. But when Betty Crocker tells us how to make green beer, we listen. Place a few drops of green food coloring in a pint glass. Then slowly pour in a light colored beer, which will make the green stand out. Best of all, you can use cheap beer for this recipe. As long as it’s green, no one will care what brand it is. Cost: About $8 for a dozen drinks.
• Shamrock Punch: Rather than a pot of gold at the end of your rainbow, how about a punch bowl filled with Shamrock Punch? Mix one-third to one-half of a 750ml bottle of rum with 12 ounces of thawed limeade concentrate, 12 ounces of thawed lemonade concentrate, and 2 liters of carbonated lemon-lime soda. A few drops of green food coloring will give it the right look. If desired, add a few scoops of lime sherbet to the bowl at the time you serve the punch and let them slowly melt. Cost: About $10 for a dozen drinks.
• Green Jell-o Shots: You’ll use Irish whiskey for this recipe. Buy some 4- or 6-ounce paper cups (preferably green) or clear plastic cups for each shot if you don’t have enough shot glasses. Boil 24 ounces of water and mix in three 3-ounce packages of green gelatin powder. Then add 18 ounces of cold water and 6 ounces of whiskey. Pour the mixture into the shot glasses or cups and refrigerate for at least four hours. (To make the mixture greener, you can add a couple drops of green food coloring.) Cost: About $9 for a dozen drinks.

Drinks, Non-Alcoholic*

Not all St. Patrick’s Day party drinks have to contain alcohol. Really. It’s true. (*But the great thing about each of these drinks is you can add alcohol if you want!)

• Irish Coffee: To turn regular coffee into Irish coffee, dissolve one tablespoon of brown sugar in a cup filled about three-quarters with coffee. Then add heavy whipped cream to the top one-quarter of the cup and serve. (And if you want to add whiskey to the mix before the cream, we won’t tell.) Cost: About $7 for a dozen drinks (without whiskey).
• Shamrock Shake (not from McDonald’s): Don’t drive to your favorite fast food restaurant for a Shamrock Shake. Make one at home in a blender. The following recipe will make about four drinks. Use four large scoops of vanilla ice cream, one-third cup of whole milk, one-quarter teaspoon of mint extract, and a few drops of green food coloring. Blend them together and pour them into glasses. Top with whipped cream. Some people will drizzle chocolate sauce over the whole thing, or will add chocolate sprinkles on the top. (Blend in 4 ounces of peppermint schnapps if you want to make four alcoholic drinks.)  Cost: About $9 for a dozen drinks (without alcohol).

Food

If you want to cook corned beef and cabbage at your home for your party, more power to you. Or if you’re like most people, and the smell of cooked cabbage makes you want to move out, try these fun Irish-themed foods that don’t cost much to prepare … and don’t smell bad.

• Irish Soda Bread: Betty Crocker knows about more than green beer. The Betty Crocker Irish Soda Bread recipe is really good and takes less than 1 hour of prep and cook time. (I’d recommend skipping adding the raisins though.) Soda bread is a bit like corn bread without the corn meal. Cost: About $4 for a dozen people.
• Irish Stew: A simple Irish stew recipe is a great pairing with soda bread. The linked recipe from CookSmarts.com tastes great. It’s easy to make, with onions, carrots, potatoes, and beef as the primary ingredients. This is a great slow cooker recipe. (You’ll have to triple the linked recipe to feed a dozen people.) Cost: About $18 for a dozen people.
• Sweet Treat: To make a simple dessert, visit your local grocery store’s bulk candy section. Buy various green candies, such as Skittles, M&Ms, jelly beans, gumdrops, et cetera. (It really is unfortunate that using this method, you’ll have to eat all of the non-green candies separately.) Additionally, look for green and gold foil wrapped candies, such as chocolate toffees, chocolate coins, or Rolos. Then purchase some black, green, and/or gold cupcake baking cups and place some candy in each of them. Cost: About $4 per dozen cups.

Decorations

Depending on the type of party you’re throwing, decorations may be last on your list. But try these inexpensive ideas to make your home feel as though a leprechaun may at least have visited.

• Colorful Rainbow and Pot of Gold: Use strips of inexpensive tissue paper to create a rainbow that leads to a pot of gold. You can use a black construction paper cutout for a black pot or have the rainbow lead to “pots” filled with green and gold foil wrapped candy, as described above. Cost: About $4.
• Green Lighting: Do you have some green Christmas lights stored away? (Hopefully they’re still not hanging on your house two-plus months after Christmas.) Put them to use for your St. Patrick’s Day party. Or try some of our LED lighting ideas to create cool green lights around your home. Cost: Free to about $20.

Going Green

If you put together an all-green party for a dozen people using the 10 cheap St. Patrick’s Day party tips listed here, you’d spend about $8-$12 per person for a full meal plus a handful of drinks. Not bad. Just don’t forget to include a green t-shirt to avoid a night full of pinching … unless you’re into that sort of thing. Have enough green Jell-o shots, and you probably won’t feel the pinches anyway.

Save Your Green with these cheap St. Patrick’s Day Party Ideas

Few holidays lend themselves to featuring t-shirts with clever sayings, obnoxious sayings, and everything in between better than St. Patrick’s Day. With that in mind we’ve come up with our list of the best St. Patrick’s Day t-shirts.

Sure, we could have compiled a list of rude sayings on these green t-shirts. (If someone shows up at your St. Patrick’s Day party with a t-shirt that says “póg mo thóin,” for example, go ahead and feel offended.) And you can count on seeing plenty of St. Patrick’s Day t-shirts featuring President Trump saying odd things this year.

Instead, we decided to steer clear of all of those things. Hopefully you’ll find our list of the top St. Patrick’s Day t-shirts more clever than disgusting.

Kiss Me, I’m Lucky

If you prefer not to follow the crowd when it comes to your t-shirt sayings, “Kiss me, I’m lucky,” will set you apart from all of the, “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” t-shirts you’re sure to see while bar hopping on St. Patrick’s Day. For a further differentiating factor, you don’t have to stick with basic green with this t-shirt slogan. It’s available in 10 colors, including three different shades of green.

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Accio Beer

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you’ll appreciate the “Accio Beer” t-shirt for St. Patrick’s Day. In the Harry Potter series, the wizards and witches use the accio spell to summon an object. And what’s better to summon on St. Patrick’s Day than a frosty beer? Even Muggles can wear this t-shirt.

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Paddy’s Irish Pub

Fans of the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia TV comedy will give you plenty of credit for wearing this t-shirt to your St. Patrick’s Day night out. Paddy’s Irish Pub is the fictional South Philadelphia bar that the show’s characters own and run unsuccessfully. (And if your friends don’t know the show, your Paddy’s Irish Pub t-shirt will be a great way to introduce it to them.)

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I (Shamrock) Shenanigans

When you want to have a t-shirt that hints at an improper slogan but doesn’t come out and smack you over the head with it, the “I (Shamrock) Shenanigans” t-shirt works well. Shenanigans is a word that sounds leprechauny (I know that’s not a word, but stick with me for a little longer), making it great for this holiday.

And the meaning of the word shenanigans is just ambiguous enough that you’ll spark the reader’s imagination. Trust me: Those who read St. Patrick’s Day shirts that say things like “Fit Shaced” or “Luck You” don’t need to use their imagination.

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Drinks Well With Others

Want to let others know you’re friendly after you’ve had a few drinks? The “Drinks Well With Others” t-shirt is the way to go, providing a clever play on the “works well with others” evaluation you may receive from your boss during an annual review.

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Lucky Charms

When you’re looking for the best St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt, why not stick with the most famous leprechaun around, Lucky, from the Lucky Charms cereal? With this character, your shirt will appeal to plenty of different people you encounter on this holiday, including those who loved the cereal as kids (or as adults) and those who love vintage-looking t-shirts that actually are new. And if you need more of a kid-friendly, non-alcohol-related t-shirt for St. Patrick’s Day, this is the one.

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6 Awesome St. Paddy’s Day T-Shirts to Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day

If your favorite brand of beer is simply one that is cold or one that someone else hands to you, you probably don’t make up the target audience for the increasing number of home brewing machines appearing. But if you’re someone who has tried nearly every microbrew out there and now are ready for the challenge of creating beer at home, you’re in luck! Several new, easy to use home beer brewing machines are well worth considering.

PicoBrew

The PicoBrew home brewing machine was officially unveiled at CES 2017, after a successful Kickstarter campaign. It can make up to 5 liters of beer with dozens of beer brand recipes available from various brewers. You’ll purchase PicoPaks ($20-$30 each) that contain ingredients to match recipes for specific brands of beer from brewers. It takes a few hours to brew the beer with the PicoPak, and you’ll have to ferment the grains for 5-plus days before it’s ready to drink. The 5 liters is equal to about 12-14 bottles of beer, so this isn’t a cheap option versus purchasing beer from the store.

For those who want a little more control over the brewing process, PicoBrew is working on a system that allows you to order customized PicoPaks to change the taste of the beer by adjusting the grains included. You can pick the ingredients and the amount of each grain. Eventually, you’ll even be able to promote your own recipes through the PicoBrew Developers Program, earning a commission if others purchase your recipe, which is a really cool idea.

One of PicoBrew’s best features is the ability to clean the unit thoroughly after each use with a minimum amount of time and effort involved. This is an impressive invention that’s extremely easy to use.

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Brewie

The Brewie is a large appliance that can brew about 5 gallons of beer at one time. Brewie offers brewing with ingredients the company provides or with your own ingredients.

When working from your own ingredients, you can adjust the amounts you use for each batch, so it provides a bit more freedom than the PicoBrew. The company will give you recipes to try out with your own ingredients. After you’ve picked the recipe you want and added the ingredients, the rest of the process is automated. The front of the device includes a touch screen display to receive updates on the process and to issue commands.

Or you can purchase a pre-made “Brewie Pad,” which contains all of the ingredients needed for a particular recipe. The Brewie Pad even includes an RFID card that contains the instructions for the brewing process for your recipe. You just have to scan the card on the unit’s RFID reader, and the machine takes care of the rest.

You can order the Brewie, but only through the company’s web site at the time of this writing. And be prepared to spend some money, as the Brewie will cost you a couple of thousand dollars.

MiniBrew

The MiniBrew comes from a European company that developed its product through an Indiegogo campaign and presented its product at CES 2017. The MiniBrew is sold through Indiegogo too for several hundred dollars, although you may have to wait a few months to receive one.

MiniBrew greatly simplifies the process of brewing beer at home, as you just add the ingredients and the machine does the rest. The unit even has a smartphone app included with it to count down the time until the MiniBrew is finished with your beer and it’s ready to drink. It can make up to 5 liters of beer at a time.

As with PicoBrew, the company has partnered with numerous brewers, allowing you to recreate their recipes at home.

Brewbot

Brewbot is from a Northern Ireland company, offering a huge cabinet allowing the brewing of up to 30 liters of beer at a time (roughly 84 bottles of beer). The Brewbot is fully automated, using a smartphone app to keep the brewer updated on its process.

It’s aimed more at restaurants or bars than home users because of its size and cost of several thousand dollars. Still, if you have the money, Brewbot is the biggest option out there for the home brewer who wants to keep things simple but still wants a huge volume.

iGulu

iGulu, formerly called Artbrew, is another automated home brewing system that’s working on raising funds through an Indiegogo campaign. And iGulu’s Indiegogo page is the only place to order the device at this point.

Once you have your ingredients, you’ll be following the instructions on the LCD screen on the device to create the type of beer you want to brew. The LCD screen and the accompanying smartphone app will keep you updated on the brewing process, which can take a week to three weeks for the entire brewing and fermentation process. The iGulu’s price for its Indiegogo supporters is several hundred dollars.

SodaStream Beer Bar

Now, even though the beer brewing machines listed above are easy to use, they aren’t quite the Crock Pots of beer brewing. All of the automated beer brewing machines listed here will require at least five days to brew and ferment the beer, so you can’t expect to set the machine up at breakfast time and have a cold, homemade brew in your hand by the time you get home from work. But there’s one other even easier option that speeds up the process of making beer at home.

SodaStream, the company that allows you to create soda at home, has created a similarly designed beer making machine called the Beer Bar. (I can’t quite bring myself to call it a home brewing machine.) According to SodaStream, you’ll mix water with a “beer concentrate” to create SodaStream’s Blondie brand of beer. It’s only available in certain European countries at the time of this writing, but the company plans to expand it to other locations in the future. At least initially, the concentrate is inexpensive, as you can make six to eight bottles of beer from it for only a few dollars.

AB/Keurig Collaboration

At this point, it’s nothing more than an announcement, but Anheuser-Busch (AB InBev) and Keurig Green Mountain will be collaborating on an interesting in-home alcohol brewing machine. Consumers will have the ability to create beer, hard liquor, cocktails, and mixers with the machine at home.

Keurig’s expertise is in coffee brewing with pods at home, but the joint venture will make use of the Keurig Kold machine technology, which appeared in an at-home soda making machine a couple of years ago that the company has since discontinued. Anheuser-Busch will be contributing its beer and alcohol brewing know-how to the joint venture.

Anheuser-Busch offered a draft beer storage appliance called Draftmark several years ago, but it’s no longer available. It stored about 1 gallon of popular beer brands with refills available. So the company has some experience with providing beer-at-home options.

The Grain Father

Love the name on this beer brewing system. This isn’t quite the same as the other simple home brew machines on our list, as you have to remove the grain manually before beginning the boiling process. But it’s also larger than the most of the automated home brewing options listed above, offering the ability to create 5 gallons (almost 19 liters) at one time. So if you want a bit more of a challenge right out of the box with your home brewing … this is an offer that you (probably) can’t refuse.

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What’s New in Home Brew? 7 Automated Beer Making Machines

Binge drinking can be fun, but it takes such a toll on your wrist! If you’re planning on uncapping brew after brew, you better come prepared – if you can’t open that Cute Girl’s bottle, some other guy can. The ability to open bottles is the number one thing girls look for in guys according to Cosmo (I’m assuming – I never finished the article because I got distracted by the pictures).

If you don’t have the agility to do with a lighter or countertop, and if you don’t have the badassery to do it with your teeth, you’re going to have to do what millions of less-than-strong men have done before you. Rely on your personality. And what better way to show off your charming self than with unique bottle opener? Girls form their opinion of guys based on their bottle openers more than their cars or jobs, according to Cosmo. (Again, I’m assuming here because I never got around to the article… there was a pretty racy bra ad on the page before, so…)

Pi Bottle Opener

Like most people, we dreamed of owning a 5-inch steel pi symbol ever since we were little, but never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that it could also open beer bottles! This Pi Bottle Opener unlocks your brew just like it unlocks the dimensions of a circle. It’s easy as pie – which is to say, it’s a lot less difficult than pi!

Buy the Pi Bottle Opener Here

Minecraft Pickaxe Bottle Opener

An officially licensed Minecraft product!? We’ll buy it!… But what is it? This Minecraft Pickaxe Bottle Opener is a “pick”-xilated pickaxe that you need to collect something far better than ores and blocks – a buzz!

Buy the Minecraft Pickaxe Bottle Opener Here

Millennium Falcon Bottle Opener

This what the Millennium Falcon does, people – it circumvents tight spots so you can get where you need to go, whether it’s Alderaan or Drunksville. This Millenium Falcon Bottle Opener ain’t no piece of junk – she’ll make point-five past lightspeed so you can make point-one passed the legal limit.

Buy the Millennium Falcon Bottle Opener Here

Luchador Bottle Opener

If you can’t get your bottle open yourself, ask someone stronger… like a luchador! This Luchador Bottle Opener will give you a show as it grapples and tugs to get your beer cap off. And, unlike American Wrestler bottle openers, this one isn’t staged!

Check Amazon for the Luchador Bottle Opener

Happy Hour Timepieces

“It’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” is a slogan that’s the exact opposite of any of the “inspirational quotes” you’d hear at AA. But the Happy Hour Timepieces aren’t promoting prudence or self-control. These watches are “geared” towards drinking in two ways: the watch face always highlights 5 o’clock, and the watch band doubles as an opener! You wait your whole day for 5. Once it arrives, don’t waste another minute!

Buy the Happy Hour Timepieces Here

Marvel Silver Surfer Bottle Opener

Is there anything that magic surfboard can’t do? The Marvel Silver Surfer Bottle Opener is another fanboy favorite – it utilizes one of the shiniest superheroes to help herald the oncoming arrival of a drunken party animal that eats everything. Available in several different colors – just kidding, only silver!

Buy the Marvel Silver Surfer Bottle Opener Here

Unpackman

How frightening is the Unpackman!? We never thought something as wholesome and simple as Pacman could be made into some kind of robot vampire! We thought the ghosts were supposed to be the scary ones! Regardless, whipping out the Unpackman at a party is bound to get noticed… but if he opens the big bottle cap, he’s going to come get you next!

Buy the Unpackman Here

Tip Your Cap to these Bottle Openers

Helping us take another inevitable step towards Idiocracy, a creative agency and Dutch beer brand Amstel partnered up to develop and launch a promotion that offers up a free can of Amstel beer to the public. The catch? To get that can of frosty brew, each person has to stand in front of a vending machine in a public location for three minutes without doing anything remotely important.

Want to answer your smartphone? Sorry, you lose. Want to have a conversation with a friend? Better luck next time. You have to stand on a marker in front of the machine and stare into space for three minutes. It’s probably best just to turn off your brain and avoid all temptation to think about that YouTube video you just watched of the cat that licks the vacuum cleaner hose. Seriously, why is that cat licking the hose?

This is somewhat similar to Samsung’s recent advertisement that rewarded people with a brand-new Samsung S4, but only if they could win a 60-minute staring contest with numerous distractions surrounding them. Check out the promotional video for the beer vending machine below. Embrace the apathy. Or don’t.

Beer Vending Machine

Yes, Please: The Vending Machine That Rewards Apathy With Free Beer

Developed by graphic artist Anita Brown, this collection of artwork combines Brown’s love of frosty brew with her fondness of the Harry Potter series of books and films. Designed to look like a coaster for the home-brewed beverage, each fictional beer is linked to the name of each book in the Harry Potter series.

For instance, the name of the beer linked to the fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is called Goblet of Lager. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban becomes the Pilsner of Azkaban and so on. It’s definitely a creative way to name a home-brewed beer. By the way, if you had any interest in home-brewing, check out our guide for home-brewing here.

At this time, Brown doesn’t appear to be selling the illustrations in coaster form. However, you should check out the collection below:

Seven Homebrewed Beers Inspired by Harry Potter

Drinking craft beer: awesome. Paying $10+ for a 6-pack: not so cool. You might associate homebrewing with hipsters, or assume anything that ferments in someone’s basement can’t possibly taste any good, but brewing your own beer can save you a lot of money, taste genuinely good (certainly a million times better than a Bud/Miller/Coors/Whatever Lite), and is a lot of fun. Here’s a list of the things you’ll need in order to get started*:

*If you get a pre-packaged starter kit, a lot of this will be included, but it’s still good to know what it is you’re buying and what it all does.

1. Malt Extract Ingredient Kit ($25 to $40)

An ingredient kit will have all the grains, fermentables, hops, yeast and priming sugar you’ll need for 5 gallons of beer, along with instructions on when and how to put everything together. A simple brown ale is a good place to begin when you’re just starting out. Once you have done a few batches, you can start to get a bit more creative by adding additional ingredients and/or tweaking the recipes to fit your taste (for example, I recently started with a wheat kit and added blueberries and fresh mint — it was delicious).

2. Heat Source (Free to $60)

The top of your stove will work just fine for brewing, but you could also go for something like this turkey fryer if you want to brew outside. I suppose a grill would even work — basically anything that can hold (and get hot enough to boil) a 5 gallon stockpot.

3. Stock Pot/Brewing Kettle (Around $30)

Speaking of stockpots, you’ll need one. This is what you “cook” the beer in. Most people start with a 5 gallon pot, but they come as big as 25 gallons for the semi-professional brewers out there. If you buy one from a homebrew shop, it will be called a “brewing kettle” or something similar, but any old stock pot will work just fine. (FYI, they have them at thrift stores all the time).

 4. Fermenter ($10 to $40)

The fermenter is the container the beer sits and ferments in (ie: turns alcoholic) for anywhere from one week to three months. The cheapest version is a plastic bucket with an airlock and the standard version is a plastic or glass carboy (pictured).

5. A Good Brewing Book ($10ish)

The more you know about the brewing process, the more you’ll be able to play around and experiment. The Complete Joy of Homebrewing is a good place to start — it’s a really broad guide that covers everything from equipment to basic instructions to recipes.  The Alaskan Bootleggers Bible is another fun one — super odd and goes over not just beer-making but how to make your own wine, cider, moonshine whiskey, bathtub gin…

 6. A Capper and Empty Beer Bottles ($15 to $20)

Nobody wants a flat beer. The cheapest way to fizz your beer up is to start saving/collecting beer bottles (only the fancy beers will do; twist-off bottles won’t work). Then buy a capper to put caps on your beer once you transfer it to bottles (which will create carbonation in a week or two). An alternative is to get a kegging system (around $200); it will eliminate the need for caps and bottles altogether.

If after all this you find yourself thinking, “You know what, I think I’d rather buy my beer and not mess with this. What am I going to do with all this crap if I don’t end up liking brewing?” The answer is Craigslist. Brewing gear is in high enough demand that you won’t lose much should you decide to sell it after giving it a try. Basically, there’s a lot of potentially awesome beer to gain and not a lot to lose, so go for it!

Six Essential Items Needed to Start Homebrewing

Summer is in full swing. The Fourth of July is just a few days away. Are you ready with a good beer koozie? Here are 10 of the best that will not only keep your beer cold, but, more importantly, will help you secure your place as the coolest guy/girl at every party you attend this summer.

1. Bum Bag Drink Cooler ($13, Amazon)

This reusable can/bottle cooler is perfect for hipsters who want to look like homeless dudes but prefer to keep their super exclusive, limited edition organic gluten-free beer nice and cold.

2. Back to Back World War Champs Koozie ($8, WearYourBeer.com)

Nothing goes together quite like ‘Merica and beer. Here’s a great option for declaring your American pride, though anything involving bald eagles, the flag or the statue of liberty (or even better, all three together) should work.

3. Red Solo Cup Koozie ($8, Amazon)

This koozie is the perfect way to klass up any party or backyard BBQ. It even inspired a Toby Keith song /really awful music video (try to resist jumping through your screen to strangle the YouTube commenters comparing it to the great Johnny Cash).

4. Fluffy White Cat Koozie ($7, Amazon)

This cat will stare down anyone who even thinks about messing with your beer. If you aren’t feeling the fluffy white cat, there are other equally cheesy (when it comes to koozies, the cheesier the better) cat designs to choose from, including “white cat with baby ducks” and “cat on pink satin.”

5. R2D2 Metal Can Holder ($14, PopCultcha.com)

This is the can holder you’ve been looking for. As one reviewer writes, “It’s made from metal, looks like R2 and keeps your beer cold, what more could you want from a product?”

6. The Giant Beast Fist Shaped Can Kooler ($12, Amazon)

This one will either make you look really cool, or like a giant d-bag depending on how you play it, but either way it’s just too ridiculous not to be on this list.

7. Blockhead Knit Koozie ($10, FreakerUSA.com)

Actually, most of this guy’s knit koozies are pretty sweet, but the Charlie Brown one definitely stands out as one of the best.

8. Scorzie Koozie ($11, Amazon)

Here’s a koozie that knows how to multitask. Not only will it keep your drink cold, it will also help you keep score during yard games (or keep track of how many beers you’ve consumed, I guess).

9. Spinach Can Koozie ($4, Amazon)

We all know that beer gives you superpowers, just like spinach did for Popeye.

10. Suzy Kuzy USA Beer Mitt ($15, SuzyKuzy.com)

You’re just not a true American if you don’t own at least one of these patriotic can coozie/fingerless glove combo things, known as the Suzy Kuzy Beer Mit (an entire company exists solely to distribute this one amazing product). Check out their Facebook page for some pretty great fan photos.

Top Ten Beer Koozies for Your July 4th Party