Girl Scout Cookies and Beer is the new Indianapolis food festival you need in your life
Liz BiroWhen it comes to Girl Scout cookies, I think that sipping milk through Thin Mints is one of winter’s greatest pleasures. With Indy’s new Girl Scout Cookies and Beer festival coming up, I’m switching from milk to milk stout.
If you’ve never tried using Thin Mints as drink straws, let me enlighten you.
Take a little bite from one end of a Thin Mint, arguably the best Girl Scout cookie ever. Then take another wee bite from the opposite end. Dunk one bitten end of the cookie into milk — or beer — and suck through the other bitten end like a straw. When the milk hits your mouth, stop and eat the entire cookie in one, soft, delicious, saturated bite, which will be held together by nothing but the chocolate coating.
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Try it with Field Brewing choco-mint stout at the Girl Scout Cookies and Beer festival 5:30 to 8 p.m. Jan. 24 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The new Westfield brewery is one of 10 local craft beer makers pairing beers with Girl Scout cookies.
Brewers are serious about their pairings, but ultimately you get to decide which beers who want to try with which cookies. Plan on one to two pairings per beer/cookie tasting station, Girl Scouts of Central Indiana spokeswoman Deana Potterf said.
Cocoa nibs, vanilla bean, and mint sprigs flavor Field’s choco-mint stout, a natural with Thin Mints. With peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in mind, Field beermakers partner a mixed-berry-infused pilsner with peanut butter, chocolate and shortbread Tagalongs.
“The delicate sweetness of the fresh berries contrasts the subtle saltiness of the peanut butter cookie, while the crispness of the pilsner cuts through the chocolate,” according to Field Brewing’s tasting notes.
Sun King Brewery had the same PB&J thought with its idea to pair the peanut butter sandwich cookie Do-si-dos with the Sun King’s reserve Cherry Busey, a wild-yeast, Flanders-style brown ale. With caramel, toasted coconut and chocolate Samoas, Sun King brewers are considering reserve Velvet Fog, a strong and bold Belgian quadrupel.
“The complexity of the fresh cherries and warm notes from bourbon barrel aging of this Gold-Medal-winning beer play on the caramel and fruit notes of the cookie,” Sun King said.
Other breweries at the event are Cannon Ball Brewing Co., Centerpoint Brewing, Central State Brewing, Chilly Water Brewing Co., Four Day Ray Brewing, Indiana City Brewing Co., MashCraft Brewing and Taxman Brewing Co.
Tickets cost $50 each. Find them by searching "Girl Scout Cookies and Beer" at eventbrite.com. You must be 21 or older to attend.
Follow IndyStar food writer Liz Biro on Twitter: @lizbiro, Instagram: @lizbiro, and on Facebook. Call her at 317-444-6264.
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