Karl Strauss revamps its look: San Diego-based Karl Strauss Brewing Co. is celebrating its 20th anniversary with redesigned labels and boxes for its beer products. The new labels reflect the Pacific Beach brewery's local heritage with sketches of the San Diego Trolley's Red Line (for the Red Trolley Ale), a classic woodie automobile (for the Woodie Gold) and lifeguard tower 10 in Mission Beach for its newest beer, Tower 10 IPA (India pale ale). The tower is where Strauss founders Chris Cramer and Matt Rattner hatched their plans for the company in 1989. The bottles also now come with pry-off caps (rather than screw-off).
One a day: Sunsweet Ones, the new and improved marketing-speak for Sunsweet's pitted prunes, are now available in a new multipack canister, with each prune individually wrapped for freshness. Each 7-ounce container holds about 20 prunes (a 4-prune serving has 100 calories, no fat and 3 grams of dietary fiber) and retails for $2.49.
Club rub: The Gaslamp Strip Club, a grill-your-own steakhouse in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter owned by the Cohn Restaurant Group, is now bottling its steak seasoning mix created by chef James Stephenson. The restaurant's signature spice mix, the Strip Club Rub, is being packaged by R.L. Schreiber and sold in a 1.5-pound bottle for $14.95. The restaurant's steak sauce, Saucy Sauce, is already available for $4.95 a bottle. Both items are available "grill-side" at the restaurant.
Berry invigorating: VIB beverages will be available at 7-Eleven and Arco AM/PM stores. An acronym for Vacation in a Bottle, VIB is a lightly carbonated pomegranate-berry flavored drink with vitamins B3, B6 and B12 and several amino acids. It has no caffeine and is low in sugar, calories and carbs. VIB is sold in a 12-ounce can.
New Girl Scout Cookie variety: It's Girl Scout Cookie season, and if you're looking to supplement your usual order of Thin Mints, Tagalongs or Do-si-dos this year, there is a new cookie variety. The new Dulce de Leches are crisp cookies filled with milk caramel chips and drizzled with caramel. Cookie sales continue through March 29. Boxes are $4 each.
Tasty bugs: Lifeway Foods has introduced a new kefir dairy drink for kids called ProBugs, which offers the same healthful benefits of 10 live and active kefir probiotic cultures as its adult drink, but is packaged in a 5-ounce, no-spill spout pouch. The live whole milk cultures promote the digestive and immune systems. ProBugs come in Sublime Slime Lime, Goo-Berry Pie and Orange Creamy Crawler flavors and are packaged in four-packs. The target age group is 2 to 9.
Have a new food product you'd like featured in the "Shopping Cart" column? E-mail information to the food section at the North County Times, at food@nctimes.com. Or, mail a press kit to: Food Editor Pam Kragen, North County Times, 207 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Escondido, 92025.
