Beer For Dessert? Yes.

Fall is a great time for beer lovers, with all the special beers that are released at this time of year. You have your Oktoberfest Beers, Harvest Beers, and the ever exciting Pumpkin Beers.

Making beer with pumpkin is a practice that goes back to early American colonial times. And while the thought of pumpkin beers may not appeal to you, and frankly some current pumpkin beers are not that good, there are many that are absolutely wonderful like Southern Tier Pumking Ale.You should give it a try.

We had this at one of our favorite beer places, The Shepard and the Knucklehead, in Haloden, NJ, where our waitress took it to the next level with an amazing natural sugar rim. This is what I call a delicious dessert.

Southern Tier is a north western New York State brewer in Lakewood between Erie and Buffalo. They make many wonderful beers including one called Harvest which we love at this time of year.

Their Imperial Pumking Ale, has become world famous since it was first brewed in 2007. This is our second year enjoying and we think it just keeps getting better.

Founders Phineas DeMink and Allen “Skip” Yahn started the brewery in 2002 "with
the vision of reviving the practice of small batch brewing to a region
rich in brewing tradition." They are doing very well at this as evidenced by their many fans.

I plan to serve it this Thanksgiving if I can get some bottles down to Florida.

Pumpkin Ale is not the only great dessert beer. Other favoriteslike Young's Double Chocolate Stout by Wells & Young, or Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout that we served with a rim of Chocolate Salt by Golden Fig Fine Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The sweet and salty rim contrasted beautifully with the intense rich bittersweet flavors of this fabulous stout.

This would be amazing with cheesecake, shortbread cookies or dried fruits and nuts.

 

Another popular drink that we have yet to try but sounds exciting is beer milkshakes. Made like a regular milkshake but with beer, this has got to be great. The Red Robin restaurant chain, we have one on Route 3 in Clifton, just started offering these made with Sam Adams Oktoberfest.

Red Robin Launches Sam Adams Oktoberfest Beer-Milkshake

Here are some tips and videos:

How To Rim a Glass With Sugar

The Shepard and the Knucklehead Pub

The brewing of Pumking