Salt and Straw Releases Beer-Flavored Ice Cream with Brewer’s Series

There’s nothing like an ice-cold beer on a hot day… or maybe a chilly ice cream cone. Now you can have both at the same time, thanks to the new Brewer’s Series collection from Salt & Straw.

The Portland, Oregon-based creamery has partnered with five craft breweries across the U.S. to create its first-ever flight of non-alcoholic beer flavors, which include porter, stout, lager, ale, and hazy IPA. 

The concept dates back to 2011, when Salt & Straw’s head ice cream maker Tyler Malek first started making ice cream. 

“I was infatuated with the artisan nature of making beer and saw so many similarities with making ice cream,” Malek says. Both products rely on simple ingredients, Malek explains — beer is just malt, hops, and water, while ice cream is based on cream and sugar. “From there, it’s a blank canvas for how to combine flavors and ingredients in thousands of unique ways,” he says.

Malek also saw a parallel in the value of scoop shops and breweries in communities. “In my opinion, [breweries] are the modern-day town centers where you can run into neighbors, meet friends and family, and play trivia or bingo,” he says.  It’s about much more than just beer, which is exactly how we approach ice cream and our scoop shops. All these parallels had me hooked, and I set out on this journey to deconstruct and recreate beer into ice cream.” 

For the partnerships, Malek sought to curate a collection of breweries that use a wide range of techniques and ingredients. “I wanted to work with experts in the industry to help me break down the fundamentals so I could reconstruct them in ice cream form,” he says. 

Five microbreweries are featured in the Brewer’s Series collection: Métier Brewing Company in Seattle; Breakside Brewery in Portland, Oregon; Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California; Monkfish Brewing Co. in Torrance, California; and Cerveceria La Tropical in Miami. 

“Each of these brewers are world-renowned and bring a unique perspective, from award-winning barrel-aged stouts to first-of-their-kind hazy IPAs,” Malek says. 

Of course, turning these top-notch brews into a frozen dessert isn’t as simple as mixing up a root beer float. 

“Beer is delicious, but its flavor just isn’t concentrated enough to stand up to ice cream’s high fat content,” Malek says.

Simply reducing the beer to intensify its flavor would distort its defining characteristics. Instead, Malek consulted his brewer counterparts on the science behind their beers, then experimented in the Salt & Straw test kitchen to translate those processes into ice cream form.

The result: pints like Monkish’s Space Cookies & Cream Hazy IPA, which is flavored with English yeast and hop syrup, or Russian River’s Supplication Ale with Manchego, a fruity frozen yogurt that uses a Lambic sour instead of water in the base. 

The five-pint ice cream “flight” also includes Métier’s Black Stripe Porter & Bread Pudding, Breakside’s Barrel-Aged Chocolate Stout, and La Tropical’s La Original Lager with Guava. 

Pints of The Brewer’s Series are currently being sold at Salt & Straw scoop shops. If you can’t make it to a location, they’re also available online for nationwide shipping.