Everyone has their favorite shade of beer and their favorite shade of toast. In both situations, I prefer the darker stuff; near-burnt toast and dark lagers just offer a more flavorful, crisp experience (and you feel like you have more taste and value with darker beers, and darker toast is easier to spread on).
Two new concepts hope to make sure that eaters get the kind of toast and beer they desire. Neither are really ready for American shelves, but they’re interesting items to pay attention to in case they do.
First off, the Hue toaster concept is an interesting, one-setting toaster. You choose how dark (or tan, or light) you want the bread, and sensors in the toaster scan the bread’s color to make sure it’s where you want it. No “bagel” setting, no “frozen” setting, and so forth: simple technology takes any problems out of the equation. For bagels, the sensors will realize the denser bread and attempt to compensate. It’s high-tech for what basically equates to “lighting stuff on fire”.
On the other hand, Beertone helps you deduce the perfect beer via color alone. Taking it’s cue from Pantone color swathes, it covers the gamut of beers available in Switzerland. Sadly, there’s no American equivalent yet (to compare your Pabst Blue Ribbon Pale Yellow with your Killian’s Irish Red… Red). It’s not exactly clear how the device would handle two drinks of the exact same hue, which could easily be a problem in the generic American field. When it comes to IPAs, you’ll probably get a large gamut, and you might be surprised that the White House Lager isn’t white.
The two items should pair appropriately: if you’ll be drinking a lot of beer, you’ll want a fair amount of bread in your stomach to absorb the alcohol, functioning much in the way that Waffle House does at 3am after a bar crawl. Grease and carbs absorb and expedite the alcohol’s trip out of the body. Sure, you may need to have a power source for the Hue alongside a taste in foreign beers, but you’re set.
You should be proud: I went this whole article without a “toast” dual pun.