Pumphouse Creamery - Malted Vanilla with Malted Milk Balls

Malted Vanilla with Malted Milk Balls - Malted Vanilla Ice Cream with Chocolate-covered Malt Ball Pieces

Today's flavor is from the Minneapolis-based Pumphouse Creamery.  This is a non-seasonal flavor from their regular line-up called Malted Vanilla with Malted Milk Balls.  The flavor name tells almost all the story.  Reading the flavor description, the malted milk balls also have a chocolate coating -- so they are basically Whopper candies.  I have not had this exact flavor combination before, but checking my archives I've found a couple which are fairly similar.  The Museum of Ice Cream had a flavor called Malt Shake which had uncrushed chocolate malt balls in a chocolate base and the Graeter's Malted Pretzel Ball flavor had a vanilla base with uncrushed malted pretzel balls.  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid, the malted vanilla base has a white coloring and there are specks of the malt-ball mix-ins visible.  Digging in, the ice cream does not have an overly pronounced malt flavor to it the way some malted vanillas do.  Some flavors do this.  They use malt more to mute the base flavor than as a flavor itself.  Scattered throughout the pint are the crushed malt ball pieces.  The flavor here is mostly chocolate, but there are little pieces of malt attached to these, so I can tell that these come from crushing whopper-like candies and are not simply chocolate chips. 

This is a decent pint from Pumphouse.  The malt flavor in both the base and the mix-ins was much milder than I expected.  It reminded me more of a vanilla chocolate chip implementation but with a twist of malt.  Still an enjoyable pint.  Those looking for a malty twist on vanilla chocolate chip should check this out.  Otherwise, try sampling the flavor at the scoop shop to see if it is malty enough for you.