Rainbow Cookies and Decadent Ales Strawberry Creamsicle IPA
I know what you're thinking - what kind of monster am I? I'm afraid I don’t have a good answer for that. All I can say is that in the quest for new and innovative pairings, sometimes you strike gold and something you strike...well...something else. The difficulty of the situation is that, though I loved both the beer and the cookie individually, they just didn’t work as a couple.
The Beer: The 12% Beer Project is currently operating out of Thimble Island Brewing Co. They work with an ever growing list of smaller breweries (both CT based and not) to do can releases and pours of many strange and wonderful brews that would otherwise be inaccessible. Decadent Ales is a NYC brewery that puts out interesting IPAs like S’mores, Toasted Marshmallow, and, yes, Strawberry Creamsicle. It is a Double IPA brewed with strawberries, vanilla bean and marshmallows. It smells like a dessert - all strawberry with a backing of vanilla. When you take a sip, the first taste is of a good IPA, followed by a strong hit of strawberry and ending with a vanilla/marshmallow finish. It sounds strange but it works.
The Cookie: Rainbow cookies are another thing that seem weird but turn out really satisfying. Brightly colored cake-like layers, surrounded in a semi firm chocolate coating with red fruit jam in the middle tasting predominantly of strawberries and raspberries. It has a high sweetness, the fruit comes first with cake in the middle and a strong chocolate finish. To be honest, these were selected by my two year old, so my hopes were low. I was very pleasantly surprised.
The Pairing: This is where it all goes downhill. The two things that sink this combination are the fruit and the chocolate. Chocolate and the IPA character of the beer didn’t really come together well - maybe a dark chocolate would work better in this context but one tended to overpower the other consistently. I could get past that but the real issue was the fruit. The cookie has a very sweet and ripe berry character in line with a jam. The beer, even though real strawberries were used in brewing, tasted almost artificial in contrast and each made the fruit in the other taste bizarre. I was disappointed the pairing did not jive here, but since I enjoyed each component I am hopeful we can have a redemption series later this year.
