Our Favorite Connecticut Beer and Girl Scout Cookies
We can’t talk about cookies without mentioning the annual boxes that come around door to door from the Girl Scouts. For the average Connecticut beer trail crawler we have produced a quick guide to what we think are some quality pairings for girl scout cookies and Connecticut craft beers.
If you haven’t gotten your cookies from your coworker’s kid yet, don’t fret. The Girl Scouts of America have a nifty little tool on their website where you enter your zip code and they let you know where you can get access to a Girl Scout who is slinging boxes of those crispy cookies. CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE HERE.
So I just made plans for you this weekend.
Step 1 - Use the website to find a Girl Scout to buy cookies from.
Step 2 - Pick up a few boxes of your favorite cookies, variety is definitely a plus here.
Step 3 - Get a few of your favorite Connecticut beers or use our pairings as a guide.
Step 4 - Enjoy and don’t forget to DUNK!
If you stumble across a better pairing, the perfect marriage of Connecticut craft beer and a Girl Scout cookie, please share it with us on Facebook or Instagram.
We will take them one at a time:
Two Roads No Limits with a Trefoil
The Beer: Two Roads No Limits is a hefeweizen that is crushable and delicious. This German style beer is full of citrusy flavor with mild wheat notes, that makes it a perfect all year any time beer. This is available in many package stores around, brewery visit not necessary for purchase.
The Cookie:The trefoil is the trademark girl scout cookie, it is a shortbread cookie with mild sweetness imprinted with the timeless logo. The shortbread isn’t too sweet and it has a wonderful crispness. It is the perfect dunking cookie.
The Pairing:This is both my personal favorite cookie along with one of my favorite Connecticut beers. The wheaty toasty notes of the beer pair really well with the shortbread cookie. Also the citrus brightens up an otherwise normal, simple tasting sweet.
Black Hog’s Granola Brown Ale with Do-Si-Dos
The Beer: This brown ale has become a bit of a stalwart brew on the Connecticut craft scene. This is a wonderfully balanced brown ale with hearty malt and a bit of hops. Some caramel, chocolate, and bready notes.
The Cookie: The Do-Si-Do is 2 peanut butter cookies sandwiches around peanut butter filling. These cookies and I have a long history and I have a hard time stopping before I eat an entire sleeve in one sitting. A serving size is one box right? Second only to the trefoil, this is an outstanding dunking cookie. It is a pretty sweet cookie with a nice round peanut butter flavor that is noticeable but not overwhelming.
The Pairing: The cookies absorb the beer with tremendous efficiency. The peanut butter filling maintains its sweetness after a dunk so you get a fun play of texture and sweetness, peanut butter, crunch, and softness all at once. A satisfying pairing here.
Thomas Hooker Chocolate Truffle Imperial Stout and Thin Mints
The Beer: This stout has a big bouquet of chocolate and dark caramel notes. The cacao nibs and powder give this beer a big round chocolate flavor. This very dark beer is a bit sweet but also has an ounce of hop bite, keeping it out of the desert zone.
The Cookie: Thin mint cookies need almost no introduction. You know... they’re thin mints.
The Pairing: One of the best ways to consume thin mints is to make what I call a Thin mint straw. (Scroll down for a complete tutorial) If you use the straw method you get this boozy minty flavored sip through the cookie and then a crunch of a very satires cookie. The chocolate is so pronounced from the beer that it really boosts the very chocolatey cookie. This is a match made in heaven.
NEBCO Imperial Stout trooper and Samoas
The Beer: A very solid stout, you get some mild chocolate and coffee, a bit of a boozy finish.
The Cookie: Samoas are coconut, caramel, chocolate, with a wafer cookie base. What’s not to like. Even if you don’t like coconut this cookie is still awesome. The Samoa was the first coconut thing I really enjoyed eating, I’m glad they opened me up to a flavor so wide in options.
The Pairing: The Stout is big and interesting so it stands up to the big flavors in the cookie. The chocolate works well with the malty cocoa notes in the beer and the coconut blends with the coffee malts nicely.
Forest City Brown Cow Chocolate Milk Stout and Tagalongs
The Beer: A creamy chocolatey Milk stout.
The Cookie: A soft chocolate enrobed peanut buttery cookie.
The Pairing: Milk stouts are a little sweet and a little creamy, which make them awesome for cookies. This beer’s chocolate profile matches well with the soft and sweet milk chocolate of the tagalong.
Stony Creek Double Ruffled and Savannah Smiles
The Beer: What an outstanding double IPA. A big, well rounded juicy IPA with lots of citrus and fruit, but not too much bittering hops. One of the very best offerings from Stony Creek so far.
The Cookie: Lemon wedge wonders. The outside is coated in powdered sugar, the inside is a soft lemon cookie. The lemon flavor is almost like a meringue pie, a little tart but delicious.
The Pairing: The little bit of extra sweetness from the sugar coating makes this already sessionable IPA even more easy drinking. The lemon in the cookie makes the citrus hop aroma pop. This combination is what makes beer and cookies together magical. I feel like Remy the little rat from Pixar’s Ratatouille with fireworks going off when I eat this.
Half Full George DunkelWeizen and S’mores cookie
The Beer: Half full brewery puts out a beer called without rhyme or reason where they rotate the style of beer. #4 in their series is called George is a dunkelweizen brewed with toasted marshmallows. A dunkelweizen is a darker version of the usually lighter German style wheat beer many are familiar with: the Hefeweizen. This one is a bit malty and has a strong mallow note right up front. A little on the sweet side, but not syrupy or unpleasant. Unfortunately this is a limited release. Let’s hope half full makes s’more of this beer and it comes into their regular rotation.
The Cookie: This is a newer edition to the Girl Scout menu. It is a sandwich cookie with graham type cookies and a center that is a swirl of chocolate and marshmallow.
The Pairing: The Dunkelweizen has this strong marshmallowy note right up front that mirrors the marshmallow in the cookie really well and makes this so interesting.
The Thin Mint Straw
Now here is a bit of an advanced cookie and beer eating technique that very well may change your life forever. If you use a bit on ingenuity you can turn that delicious thin mint into a yummy edible straw.
Step one: Nibble a small bite from one side of The cookie.
Step two: Nibble an equally small bite on the opposite side of the cookie (see image)
Step three: Place one end of cookie into beverage, place mouth to opposite side, proceed to suck liquid THROUGH THE COOKIE.
This gives you delicious chocolatey beer sips and then you get to bite into a chocolate covered, beer (or I guess if you’re despereate milk) saturated cookie that is awesome.
Your welcome :)
