Beer and hot summer days go hand in hand, just as beer does with ice cream. Say WHAT you ask? Yes, so you may just want to grab one the latest crazes to hit Virginia streets for frozen beer on a stick — a creation concocted by chef Frank Morales, at the Rustico Restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia, when he accidentally froze his cherry-flavored beer in the freezer and soon realized it made for a tasty treat.
The summer-time favorite ‘Hopsicle’ has made its come-back after the restaurant was granted permission to sell frozen beer on a stick.
As a base, Morales uses Belgian fruit beers that are low in alcohol and minimally hopped. The icy beer-infused treats are subject to beer availability and come in 7 flavors — framboise, cherry kriek, peche, cassis, banana, plum and the new and improved chocolate stout, at $5 a pop.
Morales whisks the beer thoroughly to drive off carbonation, adds chopped-up fruit and two “secret ingredients,” then heats the mixture to a boil. Once it’s cooled, he pours it into molds shaped like a cylinder, a cone, a star and a rocket ship.
The Hopsicles have a slightly slushy texture and an intense fruitiness, with the beer adding extra layers of flavors. The banana pop has a dry, biscuity maltiness, as well as a faint hop bitterness. The plum bears some of the earthy flavor typical of Belgian lambics — beers that are exposed to the atmosphere and fermented spontaneously.
Photo Electronic Alchemist
The brainchild of the brew pop by Frank Morales and Beer Director Greg Engert ruffled the feathers of the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) last year, citing numerous conflicts, and the control board prohibited Rustico from selling its brew pops which were selling like hot-cakes.
ABC regulations require the beverage to be “served in its original container or immediately after pouring.” The board amended the law on alcohol content in prepared foods, so Rustico is able to sell its brew pops once again.
Photo Erincooks
“As long as adults consume responsibly, government should certainly not over-regulate the inclusion of alcohol in food — or brew pops for that matter.” said Ebbin, a co-sponsor of the bill.
Morales’s original hopsicle recipes were made entirely from beer, but he changed them to incorporate other ingredients in an effort to appease the local liquor control board.
“Go into a restaurant that uses wine as a food ingredient and you don’t have these issues.” says Morales, who also uses beer in soups, potpies, ragouts and even a peanut-butter-and-beer-jelly sandwich.
The beer pops will be available through to September at the restaurant, located at 827 Slaters Lane.
Now that the restaurant can legally sell the hopsicle, the state is awaiting confirmation of the alcoholic beer-sicle’s legal status.
Beer Desserts
Beer may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think icy treats and desserts, but plenty of recipes and restaurants serving them abound with a plethora of microbreweries, restaurants, and pubs that brew their own blends — from honey to blackberry — putting beers on the dessert menu on a regular basis.
Strong, dark beers can have a noticeably bitter after taste, but many pair well with fruit to make sorbets. Dairy can mute the flavors of some malts, but also conceals lingering bitterness, so it pairs well with stronger ales.
Beer Ice Cream
Adding beer to ice cream recipe is no different from adding Grand Marnier. Instead of the ever-present cheesecake dessert, you can choose raspberry lambic sorbet served in a stemmed Belgian glass, or a triple decker treat of a fudge brownie and vanilla beer ice cream with porter poured on top.
Beer Ice Cream. Photo Tequila & Donuts
Brew Your Own
The Nibble presents instructions for concocting your very own beer ice cream at home.
Sweet cream, whipped and frozen smooth, is a perfect foil for malty, slightly bitter flavors of beer. Blended with chocolate, or tropical fruits, beer can be a good stand-in for other liquids in the typical recipe for ice cream. The how-to’s:
• Most ice creams start with a cream or dairy base: skimmed evaporated milk, custard, whole milk, yogurt or half and half.
• Add a sweetener, such as white or brown sugar, or even a reduced wort or malt extract syrup.
• Blend with a binder of some sort — eggs, gelatin, cornstarch or rice flour — especially if the recipe will incorporate fresh ripe berries or cut fruit. Cook the blend (a necessary step if raw eggs are used).
• Add other flavors (vanilla, chocolate, beer), stir well and chill. For best results, the cream base should be well chilled before freezing.
“It’s a little tricky to make a smooth, creamy malt ice cream from reduced wort.” said Darren Chadderdon, a former chef at Gordon Biersch’s Palo Alto brewpub. “If there is too much sugar in the wort, it will interfere with the fine ice crystal formation that you want in a frozen dessert.”
There are many types of beer ice cream, and the Daily Nexus offers their own information using stout beer:
• 2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
• 8 egg yolks
• 1 can of Guinness or other stout
If you want vanilla, use a vanilla bean, and if you prefer chocolate, use 1 1/2 teaspoons of cocoa powder.
Boil the stout and the heavy whipping cream, and mix the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl. Slowly add the boiled mixture, whisking the entire time to temper the eggs. Add the entire mixture back to the pot, then cook and whisk until you have thick custard. Let your concoction cool and pour it into an ice cream machine.
Guinness Ice Cream. Photo Nicole Lee
The Food Network Web site features an Emeril Lagasse recipe for Guinness Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate-Honey Sauce — a blend of “cream stout” ice cream with chocolate swirls.
The rub on making icecream liquor is that ethyl alcohol solidifies at a much lower temperature (minus-173F) than water (32F / 0C), and even small amounts of alcohol will lower the freezing point of a solution. Beer cookbook author Lucy Saunders claims that “you’ll wind up with something that has more of a soft-serve consistency.”
Saunders’s website offers recipes such as Apricot Ale Frozen Custard and Spicy Spiked Ice Cream.
Photo Kanko
Reducing the beer will often boil away most of the alcohol, so in many cases, you can gorge on these delectables till you pop.
Kitchen manager-chef David Hickman creates peach and raspberry sorbets from Belgian fruit beers St. Louis Peche and Framboise, and an oatmeal stout-flavored chocolate ice cream, and then pours 8 to 10 ounces of beer on top. The raspberry float, served in a goblet glass, is a frothy, sweet-and-sour refresher. But he estimates his beer ice creams contain between 0.5 and 0.9 percent alcohol.
Beer Floats
With a deliciously cold beer in hand and a few scoops of luscious ice cream, what could be more refreshing than a beer float?
Beer Ice Cream Float. Photo Dan4th
The Daily Nexus says that not all beers make for great beer floats, but very sweet beers work best. The 2 best types of beer floats are the chocolate shake and the melted creamsicle.
To make the chocolate shake beer float, find a beer with some cocoa or chocolate flavors in it, which surprisingly is not as difficult to find as one may think. Add it to a tall glass filled with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream. If you want to go the extra mile, add some chocolate shavings or crumbs to the top. For chocaholics, substitute the vanilla ice cream for chocolate ice cream.
For the creamsicle concoction you want to find a honey flavored beer with citrus hints. A honey blonde or Hefeweizen should do the trick. Just like the chocolate shake, add the beer to a tall glass with vanilla ice cream in it. Sprinkle some nutmeg on the top, and you will be in creamsicle heaven.
Double Chocolate Stout Beer Ice Cream Float. Photo NPoell
If the thought of adding chocolate, fruit or spices to a beer puts you off, try using Guiness or any stout beer and vanilla ice cream. It won’t be as sweet as a beer float, but it’s a good stepping-stone for those who believe beer should be drank by itself.
Beer Milkshakes
Photo JB Curio
The guys from BiteClub lend their expertise to the mix of beer milkshakes:
1 cup ice cream
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp sugar (optional)
1Tbsp malt powder
3 Tbsp Samuel Adams Cream Stout (using a little more is fine)
You can use any type of beer, but a stouter beer lends a particularly nice chocolate and caramel tone.
Blend and serve.
You see the problem here. What kind of ice cream? BiteClub smelled a trip to the freezer section to find out and recommended Vanilla Haagen-Dazs, chocolate Haagen-Dazs, Hawaiian Lehua honey & sweet cream (a Reserve flavor from Haagen-Dazs), and coffee Haagen-Dazs.
Vanilla Beer Milkshake — a great, even flavor if not totally exciting.
Chocolate Beer Milkshake lends a nice bitterness and darkness to contrast the sweetness of the ice cream.
Honey Beer Milkshake — the experts claim it’s not terrible for a dessert. Spoon over your partner.
Coffee Beer Milkshake has an intense and robust flavor — the only milkshake that they could really taste the beer in.
Beer On A Stick Controversies
Sources: Metro, Washington Post, Slashfood, and Daily Nexus
As much as you might wish, one cannot live on beer and ice cream alone, so check out some radical barbecues along with some great BBQ recipes:
Barbecue Grills and Recipes for Real Men
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