20131104

The Craft Beer Nation Bottle Opener

Not too long ago I was contacted by a company that sells customized bottle openers, along with a complete collection of other items. Seriously, just about anything you can think of to put a custom design on, you can find. If not, I bet you could talk to someone there and they may be able to find a way to make it happen.

When they asked me what design I would like to place on it, at first I was thinking an L's Ales logo... but I have nothing of the sort made up haha So I decided to go with the next, most obvious design... No, not the New Belgium logo... but that would have been awesome. The logo of a community I moderate for on Google Plus, Craft Beer Nation... You remember Google Plus, right? Everyone seems to think it is dead but I just think they never took the time to look.



So first off, I am not saying I expected it to take a great amount of time to get my bottle opener to me, but when I was looking at their order numbers, and considering the type of stuff they already had coming through the pipeline, I thought it would be a little bit of time before I received my product... NOPE! They showed up really fast. I don't know how long it took to produce them, but I was very excited to see them once they arrived. They claim a 7 business day turn around on the site, but I am not sure it even took that long.

The style I received was the Surfer Style Powder Coated Steel Bottle Opener that you can place your own order, with your own design at this link. The specifications are also laid out as so.
Ships In 7 Days
Size 7" x 1 1/2"
Imprint Size 1 1/8" x 3 1/2"
Imprint Method Printed or Laser
Max Imprint Colors 2
You are getting a pretty decently sized opener and I noticed mine had a little weight to it. It is not a flimsy little piece of metal. The coating on this thing is pretty solid around all of the edges, too. I noticed one point on both openers that were slightly exposed but I feel that may be a holding point or something for the machines that it runs through. It is on the inner corner of the "decapping" edge, so I expect that area to see some wear anyway.

I decided to put one of the openers through a series of test just to see how well it will hold up. I have never done anything like this before so trying to decide what to do lead to a little bit of a problem. Obviously I am going to open numerous beer bottles with it. That is just a given. I also decided to throw it through the dishwasher. Why? I don't know. I thought it might show some sort of wear. I don't think I have ever put a bottle opener into a dishwasher before but I needed something to test. It came out just as it went in. I only ran it through once, but like I said, I probably never would have done that anyway.



After many successive bottle openings, and even taking it over to a party, (where I used it on twist top caps), the only major signs of wear are exactly where I was expecting them. On the lip where the cap comes into contact with. It is not that much of a degredation, but it is there. I tried to do some fancy flair opening with this as well and all I was able to uncover from that is I suck at flair bartending. The opener still worked and I could totally grab bottles with the end that I usually use to twirl it around my finger tips.

The printing on the opener I thought was pretty fantastic, too. Very smooth and you can see the quality in the design that was printed. No bleeding colors, just very crisp lines. No smudging, no blurry imaging. Crisp and clear just as the design I gave them. A very high quality job.



I would definitely check this company out for any of your custom order needs. I am really happy with my opener and I hope my Sierra Beer Camp voting campaign contest winner will be happy with his as well.

Cheers!

2 comments:

  1. The only problem is I would never be able to get rid of 50 of these (not to mention I don't want to spend the cash). I keep looking for a company that does this sort of thing in quantities of 10 or less at a reasonable price.

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    Replies
    1. You have a point there. I don't know who would print in those quantities. It makes sense for bigger organizations/communities but not for the periodic consumer.

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