beer

The beer drinking experience is already fairly interactive. You open bottles, clink them against your friends' bottles, and dress them up in little cozies to keep them cold. Apparently, all that wasn't enough for Heineken, which unveiled a prototype of its new Heineken Ignite bottle last week at Milan Design Week.

The bottles incorporate LEDs, micro-sensors, and wireless networking. The technology can detect when the bottle is just sitting there, when a person is drinking, and when it's used for cheering. Various actions are set to trigger the light effects, or it can be remotely activated to flash in time with music.… Read more

When I pour a beer, I'm always aiming to minimize the mound of foam on top. Apparently, there are people who covet that foam, who can't get enough. Those are the same people who can't wait to buy the $40 Sonic Hour, a new gadget that ramps up the foam factor at the push of a button.

Sonic Hour appears to be the work of the same people who created the Professional Beer Foam Making Mug. They've just gone a little more high-tech this time. While the mug used a little hammer to physically excite the beer bubbles, Sonic Hour uses the power of ultrasonic oscillation.… Read more

There is a lot of good stuff that can be found in the freezer: ice cream, frozen pizza, ice. Beer, however, is not one of these items. Now, of course, there is nothing stopping anybody from placing a warm beer in the chiller to cool it down quickly and easily; nothing, that is, except for bad memories. Sooner or later, a bottle of beer put into the freezer gets forgotten about. The resulting beer explosion not only results in a ruined beer, but also in beer-coated ice cream, pizza, and ice. While beer flavored ice cream may not necessarily be … Read more

Bars can be crowded, noisy places that do little to release tension after a long work week. That's not to say these qualities are particularly undesirable; sometimes the frenetic, wild activity is exactly what is desired.

But not always. That's why we have beer fridges and kegorators for the home. In fact, the home bar has achieved such a level that we have motorized cocktail shakers and mixed drink makers that require no more than a spin of a dial.

However, as well stocked and outfitted as a home bar may be, there is one thing it most definitely does not usually come with: a steering wheel.… Read more

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This week on Crave, William Shatner has some choice words for J.J. Abrams, and we toss one back in the greatest drinking game ever invented. Cheers! Plus, we dodge a bullet the size of a football field as an asteroid nearly collides with Earth. Phew. … Read more

Bathroom break video: iPad magician at the world famous German "Hofbraeuhaus" in Munich, the beer capital.

Show title credit: Beatmaster (join us live at noon Eastern everyday to suggest a show title. The most-used suggestions at the end of every month will win a prize!)

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Though HBO and Brewery Ommegang missed a golden opportunity to release a brewski called "Winter Ale is Coming," the two entities are still hard at work turning George R. R. Martin's popular series into a drinkable product.

The first beer in the line will be Iron Throne Blonde Ale, because nothing says "deadly throne forged from the swords of fallen foes" quite like a light-bodied, straw-colored, easy-drinking ale. I would at least think the Iron Throne would rate a porter or a stout.

The blonde will be on the market just in time for the premiere of season 3 on March 31. It will be available on draft and in 750ml bottles at $8.50 each. We're still waiting to see what the label will look like. … Read more

Don't drink and text. Don't drunk dial your ex. That's all good advice, but it will be extremely hard to follow if you happen to be the owner of the Beer Keyboard.

The Beer Keyboard is exactly what it sounds like. It uses beer cans in place of keys. Just gently press down on a can and you trigger the proper letter or number on a computer.

The keyboard is made from 44 beer cans and an Arduino-powered touch capacitive controller. It was hatched by Prague-based brewer Staropramen and Robofun Create, a company dedicated to building unusual tech items.… Read more

When a nuclear apocalypse comes calling, the first thing most of us will yearn for is a drink. And thanks to our government's foresight and willingness to bomb stuff, you can rest assured that the surviving cans of PBR and Bud Light found in your now flattened local 7-Eleven will be safe to chug.

This is actually no joke. Alex Wellerstein, an American Institute of Physics science historian who also runs a blog about nuclear secrets, recently posted some old government documents and photos from "Operation Teapot."

The subtitle to this 1955 report (PDF) on the experiment undertaken at the Nevada Test Site says it all: "The effect of nuclear explosions on commercially packaged beverages."… Read more