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| New Belgium Salted Caramel Brown-ie Ale - New Belgium Brown Ale Ice Cream with Fudge Brownies & Salted Caramel Swirls |
A
new Ben & Jerry Flavor! This is a limited batch flavor done in
coordination with the New Belgium brewing company. Ben & Jerry's is
doing a beer-flavored ice cream and New Belgium is doing a chocolatey
salted caramel beer.
Similar
to this summer's "Save Our Swirled" flavor, the proceeds go to a
climate-change related charity. There is more information at the Ben
& Jerry's site:
It
is funny that they make you enter your date of birth before entering
the page. I double-checked with other alcohol-selling websites such as
Budweiser and Coors. Annoyingly, you have to repeat this process every
time go back to the webpage. You'd think that Ben & Jerry's would
know about browser cookies since they have so many cookie-related
mix-ins in their ice cream. (*groan*) I am not familiar with New
Belgium Ale -- though I must admit I'm not much of a beer aficionado. I
am more of a margarita guy.
Opening
the pint, you see that the brown ale ice cream base has a very light
beige color and some of caramel swirls and brownie bites are visible on
the top. You'll notice that I was so excited to dig in that I forgot to
take a picture right after opening but I think enough of the very top
is visible in the picture that I did take. Digging into the pint, you
do really taste the beer in the ice cream. Checking the ingredients,
sure enough it reads "Beer (Water, Malted Barley, Hops, Yeast)". I
don't know if its the barley or the hops that I tasted (or perhaps both)
but it has the same kind of back-of-the-throat bite that a beer gives
you. I couldn't tell if it had any alcohol in it. The carton did not
explicitly mention that it did, but I imagine that even if it did it was
not very much.
As
always, the chocolate brownies are excellent. Its been mentioned so
many times, but it is a marvel how they keep them soft, chewy and
flavorful while being frozen in a pint of ice cream. The salted caramel
was also quite good. I liked it better here than in the 'salted
caramel core' flavor. There is was a bigger core of salted caramel and
blondies were used instead of brownies. Unlike the brownies, there is a
freezing issue with the blondies.
I
did enjoy this pint more than I expected. I'm not really a beer guy,
but the bitterness of the ale actually complements the sweetness of the
ice cream and its mix-ins. Plus, chocolate & caramel is always a
good combination. I imagine there may be a wide range of reactions to a
beer-flavored ice cream. Beer lovers might go 'yes!' while others
might go 'yech!'. If your curious and not averse to the idea, then I'd
give it a try. Its worth it just for the caramel and brownies in my
opinion.
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