I'll Have a Beer

The Session is a monthly beer blog carnival. You can read about its origins here. This month (Beer Desserts) is hosted by David Jensen of Beer47. The prompt is located here and the roundup is posted here. David wants to know if beer goes with or in desserts and asks, “What beer desserts have you tried and liked?”

Just days before the prompt was posted my friend Jordan and I spoke about making ice cream. We had discussed several strange and interesting flavor ideas (including chili pepper) but somehow beer had escaped us. Fortunate, then, that this Session topic is beer desserts!

We made four varieties: one with my homebrew altbier, one with Redhook Sun Rye, one with Boulevard Single-Wide IPA, and one with Murphy’s Oatmeal Stout. For the first three we loosely followed a recipe from the Pencil & Spoon, chosen for its simplicity. The idea here is just to combine the dairy (we used half & half), beer, and sugar and churn. For the Sun Rye and altbier we mixed at a ratio of 6:3:2 half&half to beer to sugar. They both turned out fine but are quite subtle. On the Single-Wide we upped the ante, with almost one-to-one beer to half & half. This turned out to be about the right ratio, yielding a great hoppy flavor.

For the stout we went with a traditional egg based recipe somewhat like this one at Brian’s Belly. We boiled the half & half and beer while mixing the eggs, sugar, and a bit of cocoa. After tempering the eggs with a bit of the cream we mixed it all, cooked for a bit, then cooled it before churning. The flavor was not all that different from the others but we could tell right away that it was a lot creamier!

For all of these we used a bit of xantham gum, which acts as a binder as well as preventing the formation of ice crystals.

Every one of these beer ’screams turned out great, but the Murphy’s and Single-Wide were particularly fantastic. The Murphy’s tastes much like a coffee ice cream, but the bitterness and malt flavor remind you that it’s actually stout. The balance between the sugar and hops in the Single-Wide is ideal, and the floral hop taste is just incredible.

Red Hook Sun Rye Ice Cream
5 cups half & half
20 oz Sun Rye
1/2 cup sugar

Homebrew Altbier Ice Cream
3 cups half & half
12 oz homebrew
1 cup sugar
pinch xantham gum

Single-Wide IPA Ice Cream
3 pints half & half
36 oz Single-Wide
1.5 cups sugar
a few pinches xantham gum

Murphy’s Oatmeal Stout Chocolate Ice Cream
2 cups half & half
16 oz Murphy’s
3 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
1 cup sugar
pinch xantham gum