New Belgium Brewing Beer Ice Cream

Yes, I know what you're thinking.  Kate has lost her freaking mind.  It's finally happened.  She's gone over the edge.  Au contraire, my friends, this is one experiment that turned out wonderfully.  Thanks to New Belgium Brewing and their gracious gift of brewskis we had plenty to experiment with.  And, strangely enough, this was the first idea I had when presented with the challenge of creating a new recipe or a dozen that use beer.  My expectations weren't high.  I thought the beer ice cream would be interesting at best.  Horrible at worst.  But, what's the worst that could happen?  I'd waste some ingredients and the ice cream would go down the drain. 

The day after I found out I was one of the bloggers from Food Buzz who'd receive a stipend to purchase New Belgium Brewing products, we went to the monthly wine tasting dinner at Agio.  Our tablemates pretty much thought I was nuts when I said beer ice cream was one of my ideas.  We brainstormed other ideas, but most of those were in the normal range.  Chef Joseph and I had an opportunity to chat and he said he'd never made beer ice cream but that it sounded interesting.

 

Connie doesn't really like ice cream.  He liked this.  In fact, he finished almost all of his two little scoops.  AND, he's suggested that we fix this again for the next family party.  Wow - that's huge praise from my hubby.  George got to lick the bowl. 

He had some huge purrs going on while he was licking the bowl. 

1554 Beer Ice Cream

Ingredients:
12 oz bottle New Belgium Brewing 1554 Enlightened Black Ale
4 egg yolks
1/2 c sugar
milk (about 1/2 c - see directions)
1 c heavy cream

Directions:

Pour the beer into a saucepan. 

Over medium low heat, reduce it to 1/2 cup. 

Be VERY careful because if it starts to boil it'll overflow the pan and create a total mell of a hess.  Once you've reduced it, pour it into a measuring cup and put the cup into an ice bath.

While the reduced beer is sitting in its ice bath, put the egg yolks and sugar in the top of a double boiler set over medium heat. 

Make sure the bottom of the double boiler bowl is not touching the water.  Whisk them until they're well combined.  Add milk to the cup the beer is in to make a cup of liquid total. 

Slowly pour the milk/beer mixturre into the egg yolk/sugar mixture, whisking the entire time.  Continue whisking it until it coats the back of a spoon. 

Slowly add the cream.  Once everything is well combined, chill the mixture.  Now, it's on to the ice cream maker. 

Don't you love my note from Connie?  He's the best!

Follow the directions for your ice cream maker. 

I originally intended to coat pretzel chips with dark chocolate and add them in but this was wonderful on it's own and didn't need anything else.