Meet the arkeg. The ultimate combination of a MAME console, and a kegerator. Those lucky bast blokes at Wired managed to get they hands on one to review. It’s got some good and bad points, but you have to admit it’s cool no matter what.

The arkeg isn’t cheap, you’ll need to spend about $4000 to get this bad boy set up. It also is limited to a ‘Corny’ keg, and not a full size unit.

[via Wired]

After a long, hard day of… playing with toys, watching cartoons, and napping, nothing spells refreshment like a frosty glass of Kodomo No Nomimono – a phrase which I can only assume means something close to “beer for kids” in Japanese.

Perfect for the holidays, too, as evidenced by the second video below:

This is non-alcoholic beer, of course – looks like it’s basically sparkling apple juice. Even so, it’ll be coming to the US never, ever, ever in a million years.

[via Kotaku]

If you ask me (and nobody asked me) the standard 12-ounce beer size is long overdue for an upgrade. We, as Americans, like things larger than life and there’s no reason we should still be drinking a single beer in under a minute. Until all beer manufacturers start shipping suds in 32-ounce (or larger) cans, we’ll have to make due with an apparatus such as this: the Portable Tap Dispenser.

It’s basically a backpack with a big tube to hold a bunch of liquid, connected to a tap. There’s even a pocket for holding cups if you still insist on doing your drinking 12 ounces at a time. I’m not quite straight on exactly how many ounces this thing holds, but it appears to be enough for at least a nice stroll around the block. The tube looks like it’s made of plastic, which will make your beer taste funny — better drink up quickly, then.

Thirty five bucks at FunIdeas.com if you’re interested.

Portable Tap Dispenser [FunIdeas.com]

What happens when you mix one of the best ‘budget’ beers with the best messenger bag company in the biz? The best messenger bag of all time! That’s right, friends, Chrome is giving away one (or maybe more than one, I don’t know) LE Citizen PBR bag. How do you win? I’m glad you asked because it’s the easiest contest I’ve ever come across.

Sign up for Chrome’s e-mail correspondences before July 31 and you’re automagically entered to win! A winner will be announced the following day. Easy, right?

Citizen PBR Bag [Chrome]

Brewing your own beer by hand is soooo 1992. You can now automate most of the process using an Arduino controller and some source code over at Halfluck.com.

As for materials, you’ll need an Arduino board, an LCD and serial board, two temperature sensors, four push buttons, four solid state relays, one 2400-watt heater element, two perastaltic pumps, and one spit motor.

The system, once assembled, can apparently whip up a pretty consistent batch of beer and can be remotely controlled and monitored. As for the copious scrubbing and disinfecting involved with homebrewing equipment, you’re on your own for that.

Halfluck Automated Brewing System (HABS) [Halfluck.com via Make]

Okay, this is definitely a new one. The “BeerPaQ CarboPouch for Draft Beers” is pretty much exactly like it sounds, although you could drop “BeerPaQ” and “Carbo” to achieve the same effect: it’s beer, but in a pouch. But why?

Here’s why. It’s expensive and time-consuming for smaller “craft draft beer brewers” — people who brew their own beer that’s delicious enough to sell to other people — to bottle all those beers for sale. These beer pouches make it easier and less expensive to do so, especially at on-site events like beer festivals and whatnot where they may sell beers one at a time.

The pouches are made from a special “organoleptic film structure” that apparently don’t change the taste of the beer, so it’s just like drinking out of a bottle assuming you can get past the mental aspect of drinking a tube of beer.

Here’s more:

“The patented film structure is designed to handle the pouch “stretch” after filling and carbonation expansion. The automatic filling process is such that there is no headspace after filling. The three-side seal pouch has a smooth side comfort grip feature. The combination of these factors makes the CarboPouch™ a true economical innovation for distribution of craft draft beers to the consumer’s home. Sports functions now have a package!”

The pouches come in three sizes: 8 ounces (boo!), 16 ounces (yay!), and a whopping 1.8 liter-sized pouch (hooray!). I’ve never personally heard of or seen anything like this but maybe they’ll slowly creep their way into local beer-stravaganzas everywhere.

CARBOPOUCH [Beverage Pouch Group via DVICE]

The Beer Blaster isn’t NEW new, per se, but keep it on your radar as we prepare to enter the first days of outdoor drinking season – spring, summer, and fall. The kit consists of a gun that allows you to shotgun a beer to someone else, if that makes sense, and you’d be remiss to wander about your neighborhood barbecues without the additional holster and ammo belt.

I’m a bit torn, as I love beer but I do NOT love foamy, shaken-up beer being squirted through plastic tubing. The idea of the Beer Blaster, though, is hard to resist. Perhaps I could drink a few beers normally and use the Beer Blaster sparingly. Or maybe I could always drink beer normally and shoot beer at everyone else.

The gun costs $22 (available in red and blue), the holster costs $10, and the belt costs $12.

Here’s a video if you’re still on the fence:

Beer Blaster [Beer-Blaster.com via Likecool]

Currently, Sierra Nevada’s 1.6 million gallons of excess yeast are used as a nutritional supplement to beef and dairy cows. Initially Sierra Nevada plans to use the MicroFueler to create ethanol fuel for its own fleet of cars. If sufficient fuel can be produced — ie: if we all keep drinking their sweet elixir — there’s talk of fueling employee cars as well as potential distribution.

Sierra Nevada is no stranger to environmental friendliness. They publish their solar power production, they recycle like crazy, and they’ve been using homemade biodiesel fuel for a couple years now:

In 2007, Sierra Nevada began a new program to utilize spent vegetable oil from the Taproom and Restaurant as an alternative fuel source for their fleet. Sierra Nevada purchased a Springboard biodiesel processor which produces 50 gal batches of biodiesel in 48 hours and is currently doing a batch a week. The finished biodiesel is used in the Sierra Nevada long haul and local route trucks.

Order a six pack for you, and one for your car! But don’t drink and drive.

Via CNet

All this device seems to be is a beverage cozie paired to one of those resturaount coaster pager thingie. Simply click the locator key fob and the beer will light up and sound-off with a loud, classy belch. Now, all you need to do is not lose the locator. $29.99.

Bandai Japan today announced it will start selling beer shampoo (in beer bottles) December 1st [JP]. It’s about time somebody came up with this. The company is promoting the shampoo as part of its “One of the things everyone has been wanting to try for a long time at least once” series, which includes fake money bills that you can take a bath with [JP].

Bandai says one of the ingredients of the shampo is hops extract, exactly the kind found in normal beer. According to the company users are supposed to simulate the joy of opening a beer bottle with a splash without the usual consequences in their own home.

The shampoo is suitable for the body only and has a citrus fragrance, Bandai (seriously) promotes with being “the scent for humble winners”. Sorry, even though I live in Japan I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

The shampoo will be sold in convenience stores and drugstores all over Japan, with one bottle costing $3. Bandai expects to ship 500,000 bottles by March next year.

I’d say 90 percent of the staff here is one weekend bender away from a one-way trip to the Betty Ford Center.

But beer doesn’t merely ruin lives, no sir. It can, apparently, ruin relationships, too! That is, unless you follow the advice of The Frisky, a new women’s site that was just brought to my attention. They’ve put together a list of 10 so-called “gateway beers*” that your better half will enjoy.

For example, Red Stripe is described as a “lager-style beer that has a cola-like thickness, no wonder it’s brewed by a former soft drink manufacturer. It also has a faint hint of molasses making it not too sweet and not too bitter.”

See, all your relationship troubles can be solved by simply knowing what beer to incorporate into the mix. I recommend Corona without the lime: I concede you’re not doing anyone any favors by drinking Corona to begin with, but if you use a lime you’re walking in with a loss.

*We had a spirited debate in the official CrunchGear chat room as to how you pluralize the word “beer.” I brought up that you don’t say, “Oh, look, there’s two deers on my lawn.” Right? So why would you say, “Give me two beers” even though “beers,” here, sounds more natural than “beer.” All of us tried to figure this out, but we’re no closer to an answer. The assumption right now is that there’s no “right” answer. As such, we’re open to any suggestions or opinions you might have on this topic. Clearly this is the most important matter of the day and needs to be resolved.

This video shows an iPhone controlled beer pouring machine that is triggered by the word “Pour” found in a Pownce RSS feed. It does not solve world hunger or cure cancer, but I think the creator’s heart is definitely in the right place.

Digg users/Gizmodo take note: this product, made from Legos, run by the iPhone, and designed to pour an entire bottle of beer into a glass is aimed squarely at your target demographic. Our only improvement? If the iPhone had been controlled by a man in a Boba Fett costume and the woman in the video had been dressed like Leia in the Jabba’s lair I think the true awesometude would have blown this video off the charts.

We’ve all heard the “red wine is good for you” argument before, but let’s face it; not everyone would choose a glass of red wine over a nice, cold beer. I wouldn’t, at least. Anyway, the actual benefit of drinking red wine comes from a cancer-fighting chemical called resveratrol, which occurs naturally in grapes.

The problem with the red wine argument is that you’d have to consume about a half a bottle each day to get the beneficial effects of the chemical. If only someone could figure out how to add a more potent blend to delicious, nutritious beer…

Six students at Rice University in Houston have figured out a way to add a genetically engineered version of resveratrol to beer. To beer! I’ll concede that this idea totally trumps the idea that my friends and I came up with in college of somehow adding smoking to beer. You’d basically take a sip and then exhale smoke. We ran into problems figuring out how to keep a cigarette lit while inside a liquid-filled can.

What I’m trying to say is that the Rice University beer is a much better, healthier idea. It’s basically the complete opposite of what we were trying to accomplish. The team is getting help from Saint Arnold Brewing Company in Houston to develop a resveratrol-infused yeast and expects that, within about five years, beer companies everywhere would be able to purchase the odorless, tasteless chemical to add to their own brews.

[via Computerworld]

Think back on the last party you attended. Perhaps you enjoy sitting around an impeccably decorated living room and sipping glasses of cold, frosty beer poured by a nattily attired waitress named Nicole hired for the night so the hostess could mingle with the glitterati in attendance. Or perhaps it was at your friend Terry’s house where you ended up puking all over his couch after trying, and failing, to put firecrackers on his cat. If you read CrunchGear, I’m suspecting it was the latter. That is why the Heineken Draught Keg is not for you.

Conceptually, this bucket of beer is solid. Who wouldn’t want a big keg of Heinie on the counter, ready for all comers? It’s like a party ball without the ball you can cut in half and put on your head later.

That’s what I thought when I bought this keg of fail. The keg is supposed to contain five liters of sweet beer along with a CO2 delivery system. What it actually contains is 10 liters of foam, some beer, and lots of beer on the top of the keg that runs down the sides into the fridge and makes a huge holy mess.

To connect the beer to the outside, you have to insert a little tapping mechanism. This tapping mechanism, no matter how much you try, does not form a proper seal and allows beer to flow up and out of the keg guts. If you carry the keg at all or, perhaps, drive with it, it also begins to foam and most of your pours consist of head and faint sliver of nectar. Not a fun time. This is basically going to be the most petulant and difficult-to-manage guest at your party – be warned.

I’m sure others have had excellent experiences with the Draught Keg but anecdotally I’ve confirmed that most folks have had big problems getting this thing to work properly. I’d recommend getting a case of Amsterdam’s best and leaving it at that. This is a party foul.

Product Page

This is what’s wrong with Digg. I just wish I had found it first. Heh.

CNK

People who are really into wine get cool sounding titles like “Sommelier” and “wine enthusiast” while people who really love beer are often just called “fat” and/or “drunk”. Unfair though it may be, I happily plop myself into the latter category of beer lovers. So for the beer lover who’s got it all, here’s the $8.99 Beer Wheel — a drinking gadget, if you will. Ooh, and it’s edumacational, too.

It’s actually probably a better gift for people just getting into beer, as it’s got all the pertinent info about all the wonderful beers of the world. You’ll learn about lagers, ales, bocks, pilsners, stouts, and more. Plus the more you drink, the more fun it is to spin the wheel. I’d keep the fridge loaded with beers of each type, spin the wheel, then drink the type of beer it landed on. Then you could learn about your beer as you’re tasting it. There’s a bar near my place that has a beer wheel, although you don’t really learn about the beer. You just give them money and spin the wheel.

Beer Wheel [Organize.com via Uncrate]

Hot on the heels of our back to school week comes one of the most seemingly indispensable storage devices to date: The TrekStor USB stick with built-in bottle opener. Let’s face it, there have been a lot of stupid, dumb implementations of flash drives before (keychains, wristbands, necklaces, etc.) and a lot of brilliant implementations of bottle openers before (Reef’s “Fanning” sandals, for one) and it’s about time we got some crossover between the two.

The TrekStore flash drive comes in a solid, brushed aluminum housing and is available in capacities between one and 16 gigabytes. It’ll be available in October (hopefully it’ll make its way here) for between 6.99 and 49.99 Euro, depending on which capacity you choose – that’s about $10 to $70 US.

[via DVICE]

2008 is the first year that the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin has included so-called “white goods” in addition to the traditional media and entertainment products on display.  Particularly interesting to me were a collection of high-end wine coolers like those pictured above, and the Philips Perfect Draft beer fridge.  Stick a pony keg inside the Perfect Draft and you can reenact your favorite scenes from Cheers!

Stella Artois is a non-offensive beer best consumed while watching non-American sports like the Champions League or the Tri Nations. The Sony PSP is a portable video game system best enjoyed after it’s been loaded with a custom firmware and decked out with emulators and the like.

But a Stella Artois PSP? Madness.

The PSP isn’t an official Sony product, but rather represents the handiwork of Fosters’ sales team. (Remember, Fosters is Australian for “beer.”) It’s got the lager’s logo on the back of the system itself, and comes with a cloth case that just so happens to have the Stella logo for all to see. Some 50 of these were produced.

Now, if someone makes a Miller High Life version, then we can all celebrate. To quote Opie and Anthony producer Danny Ross, it’s the champagne of beers.

via Kotaku