Yes, There Is A Yuengling Ice Cream; But No, It Will Not Give You A Boozy Buzz

If you’re the type of person who’s tried (or is willing to try) mixing beer and ice cream in some kind of alcoholic, creamy float dessert, hearing that there’s a brand of Yuengling ice cream that’s just now returning to shelves might sound like a dream come true. And while it’s true, all right, there’s no actual beer involved in the dessert.

It’s been almost 30 years since the last carton of Yuengling’s Classic Ice Cream disappeared from the grocery store shelf, so it’s no wonder devoted fans are in a bit of a tizzy, as noted by Foodbeast.

D.G. Yuengling & Son was founded in 1829 and is now the oldest brewing company still in operation here, although the ice cream arm is completely — and unfortunately, for many — separate from the beer side of things.

When Prohibition hit in the 1920s, the brewery decided to turn its talents to other industries, including the dessert set. The owner of the brewery started Yuengling’s Ice Cream Corporation in 1920 in Pottsville, Penn. to deal with the moratorium on booze set by the 18th Amendment, the company site explains.

And from there on, the ice cream became a fan favorite, even after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. That ended in 1985 when the family decided to close up the factory and donate the building.

But as of last week, Yuengling’s Ice Cream is back in production under the ownership of one of the Yuengling family, and will make its return to shelves by mid-February of this year at certain East Coast stores. As for that beer float, the closest brewed flavor is probably Root Beer Float. But if you want actual Yuengling, well, you’ll have to add that yourself.

(Oh and in case you’ve never encountered Yuengling in any of its forms and are curious about the pronunciation: It’s “ying-ling.”)

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Long John Silver’s Says Its Entire Menu Is Now Free Of Trans Fat

(Morton Fox)

About six months after being publicly shamed for offering the “Worst Restaurant Meal In America,” loaded with more than two weeks’ worth of trans fat, the Long John Silver’s seafood chain has declared that it has eliminated all trans fat from its menu.

The transition began for LJS back in August, shortly after tests by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that the restaurant’s “Big Catch” fried haddock meal contained significantly more trans fat than the already high number listed in the company’s nutritional information. In fact, according to CSPI, the Big Catch contained 16 times the American Heart Association’s maximum daily intake of trans fat.

At the time, the company moved to eliminate the use of trans fats in the cooking of items that weren’t battered — hushpuppies, french fries, crab cakes, among others — with the goal of being rid of trans fats by the end of 2013.

Today, the restaurant chain announced that all menu items at LJS are cooked in 100% soybean oil.

“We are very pleased to improve the health profile of our entire menu and transition all of our fried products to trans fat free soybean oil,” said LJS CEO Mike Kern in a statement.

CSPI Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson says the switch away from partially hydrogenated oils is “great news for its customers… We were glad to work collaboratively with Long John Silver’s leadership team and are pleased that the company achieved its ambitious goal in six months’ time.”

A number of fast food chains stopped using trans fat oils in their cooking amid growing concern from the public and pressure from regulators to use healthier alternatives.

Last November, the FDA announced a plan that could remove trans fat from the U.S. food supply forever.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

StubHub Announces New “All-In” Pricing: The Listed Ticket Price You See Is What You’ll Pay

Remember how Ticketmaster promised it was going to be all upfront and transparent about which service fees and charges you’d be paying on tickets, but then sort of dropped the ball? It’s now StubHub’s turn to promise more transparency, with its new “All-in” ticket pricing announcement today. It basically promises that the price you see for a listed ticket is the total price you’ll end up paying at checkout.

For example — if you go to buy a ticket for a concert on Ticketmaster, it’ll show you an initial price (that includes a $10ish service fee in that price) and then tack on a processing fee of $6 at the end. And that’s not including any delivery fee if you choose hard tickets. There’s no charge for electronic tickets or standard mail shipping.

But over on ticket resale site StubHub, if you’re looking for a ticket, the total cost is displayed right from the second search results appear.

From this morning’s email announcement:

On StubHub, you’ll see the final price right when you hit the site. Nothing more will be added to your cost. Not even delivery charges.

Interested in Justin Timberlake tickets that you see listed for $100? Well, $100 is all you’ll pay. On other sites, that same ticket might be listed for $88, but will cost you $104 when it’s all said and done.

It’s worth noting that because each ticket’s delivery options are set by the seller — some only have electronic tickets so you will have to download them, while others are selling hard tickets — you should adjust the “delivery methods” filter when searching for your tickets. It’s not that StubHub isn’t charging for delivery, it’s just including that fee in the listed price of your search results.

While the price listed is the price you’ll pay at the end, if you’re curious about what the included service fee is or how much you are paying for delivery, simply click under Price Details where it says “[see details]” like in the example below.

If you are searching for hard tickets, the price for delivery will default to the cheapest available option; in the example I ran through, it was $5 for UPS Second-Day Air:

And if that $21 service charge is too much for you to bear? Well, that’s your decision to make (And no, I did not go through with that purchase).

Again, if you don’t want to pay $5 for delivery make sure you set your filter ahead of time to only show electronic tickets. That being said, it’s still $2 for either instant download or electronic tickets (electronic tickets might not be available for immediate download and will instead have a “download by” date). There’s no way to change that option when it comes time to complete your purchase.

Check out the full email below, and let’s hope this transparency actually lasts:

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Now On Shelves: Cookie Dough And “Marshmallow Crispy” Flavored Oreos

The proliferation of Oreo flavors is, depending on your point of view, either a global nightmare or a an exciting new source of awesomeness and variety. We’ve made it our mission to bring you the latest novelty Oreo flavor news, even when those flavors don’t make a whole lot of sense. Like the limited-edition Marshmallow Crispy flavor.

Of course, regular people would call this flavor “Rice Krispies Treats,” but Rice Krispies are a different product owned by a different company. Instead, they’re called Marshmallow Crispy, with a picture of a crisped-rice cereal/melted marshmallow treat on the package just to make sure that consumers get the message.

Everyone knows what a chocolate chip cookie looks like, though, so the “Cookie Dough” flavor of Oreos needs no vaguely similar names. Just cookies. Delicious, delicious cookies.

We haven’t tried either of these flavors yet, and the first we’ve learned of their existence were some quick photos posted in The Impulsive Buy’s Spotted On Shelves section. They’re available at Dollar General, but not listed on the official Oreo site. If you’ve tried them, please let us know what you thought!

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Scammer Does A Decent Job Of Making Floor Tile Look Like An iPad

Don’t be fooled. This is no iPad. (Photo: Ceres, CA, Police Dept.)

We’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: When you’re buying an iPad at a deep discount from a complete stranger off the street, don’t be surprised when you end up with a box of useless junk. And even when that friendly back-alley retailer shows you what appears — through layers of bubble wrap — to be the real deal, be warned that it’s probably just a tarted-up floor tile.

The Ceres, CA, Police Dept. shared these photos with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Crime Scene Blog to show the lengths to which scammers will go to rip off bargain-seeking consumers.

Someone could look at the above photo and be convinced that it is indeed a real iPad covered in bubble wrap. But pull back that bubble wrap and things look a bit off… Why does the iPad have those odd ripples under its surface?

Oh, because it’s nothing but a floor tile with a print-out designed to look like the back of an iPad:

Yup, that’s just some paper and bubble wrap on top of a floor tile.

Police say scammers have been ginning up convincing fakes of iPads and other electronics — like pieces of wood doctored to look like TVs — and selling them off to unwitting consumers (who really should know better).

We’ve written about numerous instances in which people have been burned by scammy sellers offering discount iPads to people on the street (and mostly at gas stations, interestingly enough). Don’t be suckered in. Even if someone is offering you a legitimate iPad, it’s probably stolen or broken (possibly both), and you should just say no.

Of course, buying an iPad from a retail location is no guarantee that you won’t get a box full of notepads, a fake iPad, a useless store display, or a bunch of random junk in an iPad box.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Robber Calls Ahead So Gamestop Workers Can Set Aside The XBox One He’d Like To Steal

(Marike79e)

Let’s get this straight: In no way is robbing a store ever something we would praise. But it does take a certain amount of chutzpah to actually call the location you’re intending to rob and ask employees to set aside the items you’d like to steal later. So in the box labeled “critical thinking skills,” one bad consumer in Nashville would at least get a check mark for thinking something like this might work. Because it did.

Police in Nashville say there’s surveillance video from outside the GameStop store that shows a man arriving in a parking lot one morning and circling for an hour before rolling up close to the store, reports UPI.com.

Cops say that’s when he got up the nerve to actually call the store and ask that a $499.99 Xbox One and about $200 in games as a gift. Oh, and could you please have those items ready to pick up on his way to work? Sure, say the workers, and go about collecting his items.

Then officials say the suspect entered the store with a blue mask over his face while holding a black semi-automatic handgun and approached the clerk to take the items he’d asked for — and about $600 in cash from the register while he was there — before fleeing.

He’s organized, to say the very least, and it sounds like the cops have yet to arrest him.

Police: Gamestop robber called ahead to have items set aside [UPI.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Sears Closing Flagship Chicago Store

Along with McDonald’s, Sears is one of the biggest national brands most associated with the city of Chicago. Many people still refer to the soaring Willis Tower as the Sears Tower, even though the company fled the building for the suburbs nearly 20 years ago and gave up the naming rights in 2009. Now the once-great retailer is set to distance itself further from the Loop with news that it will shutter a flagship store in the city it once called home.

Sears announced yesterday that it will close its five-story location at 2 N. State St, which it opened in opened in 2001 after an 18-year absence in the area. The company had hoped at the time that it could cash in on the growing urban retail market, but in spite of the fact that other brands like Target have been able to make a go in the Loop, shoppers did not support Sears.

“(We) can no longer continue to support the store’s operating losses,” a company rep explains to Crain’s Chicago Business. “The State Street store’s operational performance has been poor through much of its existence.”

Liquidation of the store merchandise will begin on Jan. 26, with 160 employees set to lose their jobs because of the closing. Sears says it will allow these workers to apply for jobs at other Sears and Kmart locations.

[via Chicago Tribune]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Mini Cars Are Mega Failures In New Crash Test Results

The Honda Fit (left) and the Fiat 500 (right) were the two worst performers in a crash-test group with no real standouts. (Photos: IIHS)

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (better known as the people that get paid to smash cars into walls) recently put 11 mini cars — including well-known models like the Fiat 500, Honda Fit, Hyundai Accent, and Toyota Prius C — through its newest form of crash-testing. The results were not good, with only one of the tested vehicles earning an overall “Acceptable” rating.

The IIHS small overlap test looks at what happens when only the front corner of a vehicle is involved in a crash. This is one of the more common results of a vehicular accident — veering off the road into a tree, clipping the corner of a another car in traffic, hitting the side of a building or railing — but many car makers have not designed their vehicles to protect the driver in these cases.

The testers determine the crashworthiness in this particular test by crashing 25% of a vehicle’s front end into a rigid barrier at 40 mph.

During the first round of small overlap testing in 2012, only three of 11 luxury cars received passing marks from the IIHS. But the results of the mini car tests set a new low for small overlap testing.

“Small, lightweight vehicles have an inherent safety disadvantage. That’s why it’s even more important to choose one with the best occupant protection,” says Joe Nolan, IIHS senior vice president for vehicle research. “Unfortunately, as a group, mini cars aren’t performing as well as other vehicle categories in the small overlap crash.”

The only vehicle to earn an acceptable rating in the test was the Chevy Spark. The small overlap test only resulted in marginal damage to the electric vehicle’s structure, and the dummy placed inside the car appears to have made it out of the collision fully intact. The acceptable score on the overlap test, along with “good” ratings on the IIHS’s other crash tests earned the Spark the Institute’s Top Safety Pick honor.

In terms of structural damage to mini cars, not a single tested vehicle scored above a “marginal” rating.

“When a vehicle’s structure doesn’t hold up, injury risk is high,” explains IIHS. “Collapsing structures can knock frontal airbags and seats out of position, exacerbating the problem.”

One of the most common problems with the tested mini cars was the reaction of the vehicles’ restraint systems. Only two cars — the Spark and the Mazda 2 — earned “acceptable” scores in this category — with six of the 11 vehicles scoring “poor” for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the seat belt failed to effectively hold the crash test dummy in place during the collision. In others, the dummy’s head missed or slid off the airbag.

Speaking of airbags, the side curtain airbag could be a life saver in this sorts of accidents, but the IIHS says side curtain airbags in eight of the 11 cars tested failed to provide adequate coverage. In the Toyota Yaris, the side curtain airbag failed to deploy at all.

Other issues found during the side overlap test was the steering column moving sideways as a result of the collision and the car seats tipping forward.

Almost all of the dummies involved in mini car small overlap tests experienced some level of injury. Only the Spark dummy came out unscathed, in spite of some structural intrusion into the driver’s space. In all other cases, the dummies’ lower legs took the most damage, with seven of the 11 dummies receiving poor scores for protecting drivers below the knees. The dummies in the Hyundai Accent, Fiat 500, and Honda Fit also showed damage to the upper legs and hips.

This is probably why the Fit and the 500 received the two lowest ratings from IIHS.

“In both cases, intruding structure seriously compromised the driver’s space, and the steering column was pushed back toward the driver,” writes the IIHS. “In the case of the Fit, the dummy’s head barely contacted the frontal airbag before sliding off and hitting the instrument panel. During the test of the 500, the driver door opened after the hinges tore. An open door creates a risk that the driver could be partially or completely ejected.”

One might expect mini cars to have similar results to those vehicles in the small car category, but the slight size difference between the two classes appears to make a significant difference in terms of safety. Of the 17 small cars that have been through small overlap testing, five have received “good” ratings, while another five earned an “acceptable” score.

This page contains the full results for the entire mini car class. Click on any individual test result for more details.

Below is a summary of the results from the small overlap test:

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Target Dropping Health Insurance For Part-Time Employees

(Ben Schumin)

Saying that part-time employees can now get health care coverage through recently launched online insurance exchanges, Target announced yesterday that, as of April 1, it will no longer offer insurance to its part-time staffers.

Instead, the retailer will provide each part-time worker currently enrolled in the store’s insurance plan with $500 cash that can be used to purchase coverage elsewhere. Employees can also arrange for one-on-one sessions with a benefits manager to talk about the transition.

“Our decision to discontinue this benefit comes after careful consideration of the impact to our stores’ part-time team members and to Target, the new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan,” writes Target’s head of Human Resource, Jodee Kozlak, in a blog post.

Kozlak claims that participation in the store health plan among part-time employees was not very high, representing only about 10% of Target’s entire 361,000-person workplace.

Target is just the latest large retailer to shift part-time employees off company-provided insurance plans and toward the online exchanges. Large businesses like Sears/Kmart, Petco, Home Depot and Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse) have all recently announced similar changes in health care coverage.

Some of these employers have switched workers to private exchanges, operated by benefits providers and customized for these businesses and their employees. Others, like Target, are telling part-timers to look to public exchanges operated by the state and federal government.

One union organizer in Target’s home town of Minneapolis worries that retailers may deliberately limit workers’ hours to keep them below the full-time threshold set by the Affordable Care Act. Doing so would mean the business would not have to provide insurance.

“All of a sudden where you used to work 31 hours a week, it’ll be cut to 28 hours or less — and that’s a huge hit,” he tells the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “You’ll see a department that might have one or two real full-timers and the rest will be these perpetual part-time people who will never have a chance for full-time hours because Target is looking at everyone as a cost.”

In her blog post, Kozlak provides a vague denial to such accusations, saying that Target will not be limiting hours.

“At any time, our team members can talk to their manager about their interest and availability to work more hours,” she writes. “In fact, during the holiday season we offered our year-round part time and full time team members the opportunity to take on additional hours or cross-train to work in other areas — at their request.”

Target will drop health insurance for its part-time employees [StarTribune.com]

Target to stop health care coverage for part-time workers [Reuters]

Talking Health Care with EVP of Human Resources Jodee Kozlak [Target Blog]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

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