“Tapping the Keg” is a weekly review of craft beers brought to you by staff writer Dan Wood.
New Belgium Brewery and Ben and Jerry’s have produced the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale and are working with Protect Our Winters to combat climate change. (theimpulsivebuy/Flickr Creative Commons)
Do you love cookies, or better yet, cookie dough? How about beer? Well if you answered “yes” to one or both of these questions, then I have very strange and terrific news: New Belgium Brewery has teamed up with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company to make a beer unlike any I have seen or tasted ever before. If you are well versed in the beer world and want something fun for the holidays to shake things up a bit, then I highly recommend this beer.
The beer’s name is plain and simple: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale. It also features the classic Ben & Jerry’s cartoon cow sporting a beanie, ski goggles and a scarf blowing in the wind, alongside a mound of cookie dough sliding down a snowy hill. And of course, the cloudy blue skies found on all of Ben & Jerry’s ice creams are pictured on the front of this beer, which is brewed with vanilla and chocolate.
With the help of Ben & Jerry’s, New Belgium Brewery developed this beer as members of the B Corporation, a group of businesses that have pledged to use their success for doing good around the world.
Because this is a winter holiday seasonal brew, the two companies teamed up with Protect Our Winters, an organization dedicated to rallying winter sports athletes and retailers to protect our shrinking snowy climate zones. So with every Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale bought, you can help stop climate change. That seems like a great way to keep green, but all aside, this strange beer is sure to intrigue everyone, from the novice to the advanced beer drinker.
Out of the bottle, this beer has little head retention with a transparent yellow-gold color. The nose is very wheaty with a slight minerality and strong notes of butter, vanilla, and sugar. If I’m putting this bluntly it smells like cookie dough and Coors. The top is ultra smooth and confirms much of the nose, but without the sweetness. The body of this beer is pretty light with middle notes of milk chocolate, butter and white bread. This then gives way to a creamy finish with virtually zero bite.
This beer weighs in at 6 percent ABV which is insane for a smooth beer that tastes like cookies, so watch out and don’t get in over your head with this one. Pairings for this ale are most definitely anything that showcases vanilla and/or chocolate. This would be a great beer to sip on while roasting s’mores as the nights get longer and colder. This beer would also make a great vanilla ice cream float. It is fun to drink and is a good alternative for folks who don’t appreciate more intricate and complex beers. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ale is available at Price Chopper for around $10.
This holiday season, why not leave something a little different out for Santa to enjoy?
On second thought, scratch that. He needs to be able to make it home to the Missus.
Overall Rating: 7/10
Dan Wood is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at daniel.wood@uconn.edu.
