Counterweight Workhorse Pilsner and Anginetti
If you follow the blog at all you know we are partial to Counterweight Brewing. We have paired lots of cookies with their awesome brews. Like when we visited the brewery a while back, or when we ate a raspberry macron with their raspberry sour, or this gose, or this collab IPA, or the wizard fight, or the vulture, or the kellerbier, or the first beer shake, or even the second beer shake, or one of my all time favorite wit beers, any way you cut it, we love Counterweight. Maybe its because they are right in our neighborhood, or maybe it’s because if the Connecticut beer scene was the game of thrones they would be one of the front runners to sit on the iron throne (maybe the aluminum throne?) This idea might have some legs, or maybe not.
The Beer: Counterweight’s Workhorse Pilsner is their non IPA flagship. It is also, in my opinion, one of the best beers to be produced in this fine state. It tastes like beer, like the best beer you’ve pulled from an ice cold cooler on a warm summer afternoon. It has that pilsner malt aroma, a clean crisp flavor and taste. The finish has a little bite but is super refreshing. It could be more hoppy, it could be more malty, but then it wouldn’t be perfect.
The Cookie: I got these little anginetti cookies from my wife, who brought them home from a wedding shower. She knows the kind of left overs I’m looking for. They were a little more doughy and soft than other angenetti cookies I’ve had. A mild citrus in the dough and a little vanilla in the frosting was nice. The frosting has those large sugar crystals that make it look a bit shiny. They also provided a little crunch that at first I wasn’t into, but actually gave the cookie a nice sweetness that was missing in the dough.
The Pairing: Now this is one of those times, where I enjoy the beer so much that the cookie kind of doesn’t matter. The evening I drank this, I was decompressing from a long weekend of some crazy parenting stuff, so the relaxing value of the beer along with the sweetness and comfort food nature of the cookie made it an incredibly positive experience. Flavor profile wise, I will say that these kinds of cookies and this kind of beer are a great match; the slightly acidic beer married to a slightly base kind of cookie makes for a very pleasant experience.
