Beer Pops Redux

Just like ice cream, my first batch of beer popsicles was an impressive defeat. I should just start by assuming that any time I am freezing beer, it won’t turn out well. In round one of beer pops I did my best to match a recipe used by a restaurant in New York. Much to my chagrin, I even used Tecate, their beer of choice. I didn’t have proportions to work off of so I made six beer pops with varying amounts of sweet simple syrup and lime juice in each.

Every single one was awful. It tasted like…..frozen Tecate with sugar and lime in it. Makes sense.

In round two I did my best to forget any guidelines I had found in my research for the first batch. I went out and bought one of the nifty “pick six” packs from the grocery store. I didn’t choose my favorite beers, but instead went for six that I thought might actually make a pretty decent popsicle.

Here is what I ended up getting:

Brau Brothers’ Strawberry Wheat
Sam Adams’ Blackberry Whit
Big Sky Brewing’s Summer Honey
Capitol Brewing’s Wisconsin Amber
Fort Collins Brewery’s Chocolate Stout
Mike’s Hard Pink Lemonade


Each sample was split into two plastic cups to be frozen. One was frozen as-is but the second had something like a tablespoon or so of simple syrup (one cup of water boiled, then dissolve 1 cup sugar). I was pretty surprised by which ended up tasting good as beers vs. as popsicles.

Here are my brief thoughts on each and a picture of my friend Eriq; he didn't want to try any beer pops.

Strawberry Wheat
w/o syrup: Pretty darn good popsicle. Had a bit of a bitter aftertaste, but still good.
With syrup: One of the best popsicles. The taste of strawberry came through pretty strongly and the simple syrup did a pretty good job of reducing the bitterness. Surprisingly good for a beer I didn’t like drinking straight.

Blackberry Whit
w/o syrup: The only one of the bunch that tasted better without being sweetened. Another beer that I’m not a fan of drinking that surprised me as a popsicle.
With syrup: Very similar to how it was with syrup, but didn’t seem to have a “complete” flavor.

Summer Honey
w/o syrup: Could taste a slight hint of honey, mostly just tasted like an ale that got too cold on accident.
With syrup: The sweetener brought out the flavor of the honey a little more prominently to the front of the profile. Tasted okay, but not something I would make again.

Wisconsin Amber
w/o syrup: Rough finish to this one. The beer itself is delicious so tasting it frozen just depressed me.
With syrup: Much better than without syrup. Had hints of the flavor of straight Wisconsin amber but wasn’t close enough to make me wish I was drinking that instead of having it as a popsicle.

Chocolate Stout
w/o syrup: In the words of my friend Ken who was joining me for the tasting session. “This tastes like feces.”
With syrup: Tasted a lot like a chocolate phosphate. Sweet and chocolaty but also still nice and malty. Very high recommendation on this one!

Mike’s Hard Pink Lemonade
No syrup in either of these two. It’s not like it needed to be any sweeter than it already is. The pink lemonade was my last ditch “I’m going to make one of these work no matter what.” I figured that it would be a popsicle pretty much no matter what I did to it. It turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be. It tasted like a popsicle I had when I was a kid. Well….not exactly like one I had when I was a kid. It would still be pretty good for a summer party at some point though. I wouldn’t buy a Mike’s Hard Pink just for drinking, but for freezing? Yeah, I would do that again.

Beer Pops

Today, we have beer popsicles. They’re made by the Mexican restaurant Diablo Royale Este saloon in New York City. What they do is take a can of beer, inject some simple syrup and lime juice, put a stick in it, and leave it to freeze for four days. Once frozen they remove it from the freezer and cut it open with a serrated knife. I’ve also seen written a few places, but not enough to really confirm it, that they sometimes use a samurai sword to open the cans.

I’m obscenely curious to try it out, but it’s Tacate. There aren’t many Mexican beers I’m a fan of, and

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there are even fewer that I genuinely like (Des Equis Amber). Tacate, does not fall into those ranks. In fact, not even close. The best thing I can say about Tacate is that it tastes like beer, but with more water.

When I tried (and tried, and tried) making beer ice cream I used a great local microbrewed stout. So I’m wary of going to a store and buying a six pack of Tacate to try this one out. Hell, I might be embarrassed to just walk into a store and buy a six of Tacate. I guess I have to though, I just wish I had a recipe to work from when I try this one out. Trial and error seems to have been working well for me, so hopefully it pulls through again this time. I’m just concerned about figuring out the right mix but not realizing it because Tacate still tastes like Tacate. Maybe I’ll try it with a different kind of beer. I’ll keep you updated.

Also, tomorrow is the second annual Iowa homebrewer's fest down at Beer Crazy in Urbandale, IA. I'll be heading down with a few local friends and put up a post afterwards.

SUCCESS: Beer Ice Cream

I didn’t think I could actually do it. I got close twice, but never thought it would work out anywhere near as well as it did.

I’ve done it.

I’ve made an incredible batch of beer ice cream!

The final product was made using Stonecutter Stout from the Des Moines brewpub Raccoon River Brewing, the same beer from my second attempt at beer ice cream when the flavor was there but texture was awful. That was much better than attempt number one when the texture worked, but it tasted like mildewed shoe leather!

The Stonecutter stout gave a strong coffee flavor to the ice cream so I added in a handful of chocolate covered espresso beans. They’re a little bigger than normal ice cream mix-ins but the flavor really works well with the ice cream.

I had to follow the recipe VERY carefully for things to work out well so if you're trying this out make sure you're pretty precise with measurements, and times etc.

Enjoy!

Here is my final recipe:

Makes 2 quart

1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Cups whole milk
2 Cups heavy cream
1 & 1/3 Cup stout beer
3 Tablespoons molasses
8 egg yolks
2/3 Cup sugar
1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan combine 1 teaspoon vanilla, milk, and cream. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat, cover the pan, and let stand for 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, whisk together the stout and molasses. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the yolks, sugar, and remaining vanilla extract. Whisk in a few tablespoons of the hot cream mixture, then slowly whisk in another 1/4 cup of the cream. Add the remaining cream in a steady stream, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan.

4. Stir the beer mixture into the cream mixture. Cook the custard over medium heat, stirring often with a wooden spoon, for 7 to 10 minutes or until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon.

5. Strain the mixture into a bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. Process the custard in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. (35 min was perfect for me)

This recipe is my own slight adaptation of this recipe from the Boston Globe’s website

My White Whale

I can deal with failure. I’m actually pretty good at it. What I have trouble with is dealing with “near success.” I tried making ice cream again last night after my first attempt didn’t go well (to say the least). The first time I made something that looked like ice cream, but tasted like frozen sewer water. This time, it went the exact opposite.

When I was cooking together all of the ingredients I made sure to be as careful as humanly possible, I was bound and determined to avoid another failure. I measured everything carefully, I watched the temperatures, and I kept exactly to the suggested times.

After I let the mixture cool down in the fridge (for exactly two hours) I took it out and put it in the ice cream machine to let it mix and freeze. The suggested time to leave it in was between 20 and 40 minutes. I wanted to be careful so I checked it at twenty minutes, it was still soup. I checked again after thirty minutes of spinning in ice, completely liquid. After forty minutes, it hadn’t set even a little bit. Everything from this point on was outside of the time recommendation. After fifty minutes, nothing. Sixty, the same. An hour ten? Nope. After a full hour beyond the recommended time the ice cream was still completely liquid, not even a little frozen.

I was livid that I had managed to fail even worse than the first time I tried making beer ice cream. I was getting ready to just dump my sugary soup down the drain when I decided to try a little. The taste was incredible. It had the same dark, deep coffee and bitter chocolate taste of the Raccoon River Brewing Stonecutter Stout, but it was balanced perfectly with the custard and vanilla. I poured my liquid ice cream into a Tupperware and stuck it in the freezer for the night. Although yes, it did freeze, this is not ice cream. It has no air whipped into it and it is much harder than your standard ice cream, especially homemade ice cream. The only way I can get any is to slowly scrape it out and eat it dime-sized bite by dime-sized bite. I didn’t make too much so it probably works out better that I can barely get any because with a taste like that I might power through it all in one night.

If I failed again, I would have given up. I got SOOO close though. The flavor was there. The first time, the texture was there. Now I just need to figure out how to split the distance. I know I’m close to figuring out a way to make this work, I WILL be making it work.

Today I came home from work to grab a bite to eat for lunch and saw an interview with one of the organizers of Cityview Brewfest this Saturday at Principal Park in Des Moines. If you don’t already have tickets, get them now! If you buy in advance they’re only $23 instead of $28. Yeah, I’m excited. I’ll see you out there!

Homemade Beer Ice Cream

I tried making beer ice cream tonight and was met with absolute, complete, and utter failure. I found a few different recipes online, picked one out that called for amber ale (I used Boulevard’s amber), and went for it.

It was pretty much a disaster from

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the start. I’m usually a pretty good cook but with this everything that could go wrong, did. First the beer boiled over when it was supposed to be simmering. Then my whole milk/heavy cream mixture almost foamed over. When I mixed those two together with my eggs/sugar the milk and cream curdled.

The recipe called for the whole mixture to be strained before freezing so I thought (stupidly) that it might still be salvageable. I strained out the chunks, which accounted for about half of the volume of my mixture, and put it in the fridge to cool before I put it in the ice cream machine.

I grew up using an old-style hand crank ice cream maker. This was my first time to ever use an electric one, and as you can assume, it didn’t go well. At first it was taking WAY too long for the ice cream to set, then I let it run for a while, and that of course turned out to be too long, it was over-mixed.

Even after all of that, I was still determined to give it a try. I pulled off the lid, stuck in my spoon, and threw that first bit down the sink. It smelled absolutely awful. I thought I was sure to have gotten a bad spoonful so I reloaded to try again and my nose met with the same result. A bad smell was a perfect indicator of the impending taste. It was less like I had made some kind of beer ice cream, and more like I mixed some beer into an already bad ice cream recipe.

Everyone around the house had a spoonful or two to humor me but we all quickly agreed that the sink should be responsible for the remainder of the beer ice cream. I was planning on including the recipe in this entry but I don’t want anyone to get confused and try making it.

I’m not sure if it was a bad recipe or just my complete ineptitude when it came to the simple preparation, but this couldn’t have gone worse. I’m determined to not be beaten though; I already have plans to try again. I talked it over with my sister and this week we’re going to buy a growler of the absolutely delectable vanilla cream ale from a local brewpub, Raccoon River Brewery, and try out a new recipe. I feel like a vanilla cream ale would be much better suited for ice cream than amber ale was. When I find a recipe that works I’ll post it here for you to take a look at.

I’ll keep you posted on how this goes, I’m determined now!