Milkjam Creamery - Pistachio Cream Ale

Pistachio Cream Ale - Pistachio & Hop Ice Cream with a Pistachio Swirl

 

Late last month, Milkjam Creamery of south Minneapolis collaborated with Indeed Brewing of Northeast Minneapolis for a new limited-batch Pistachio Cream Ale flavor.  Available in pints only.  It is made with hops and it either includes or is inspired by a beer of Indeed's which is also called Pistachio Cream Ale.  This looks interesting.  It is fun to see how different brands try to mix pistachio with other flavors.  A while back, Milkjam had a Pistachio Halva flavor which blended pistachio with rosewater and tahini.  That was pretty good.  I wonder how today's mix will turn out.

Opening the pint, the base ice cream is not green like pistachio.  It is a yellow-ish white.  Digging in, I can taste a little bit of the pistachio right away.  Otherwise, it just very creamy.  Does it taste like beer?  It is actually kind of bubbly like beer.  Not super-bubbly like some of the sorbets that I have had that are made with sparkling wine (example here).  This is a lighter, foamy kind of bubbliness.  It blends in with the cream well.  I don't know if I am making it sound appealing, but it is not bad.  It's fairly decent.  Soon, I encounter the pistachio swirls.  There are large pistachio pieces embedded in greener streaks of pistachio-heavy flavor.  These are excellent.  They are flavorful and crunchy and go well with the beer base.

This is a very interesting pistachio-beer blend from Milkjam Creamery.  You can tell from the mild bubbliness that it is made from beer, but it is not at all boozy.  The pistachios are quite delicious.  I do not know how much of an overlap there is between the craft beer crowd and the craft ice cream crowd, but if this is a hit I can imagine them having fun once or twice a year with other craft blends that may include ice-cream-like ingredients.