It appears we might be on a little bit of an Anniversary Beer kick, between this and the recent review of Port Brewing Company's 3rd Anniversary Double IPA. The combination does make sense, though, seeing as Port Brewing is now creating beer in Stone Brewing Company's former brewery. Stone actually sold it to Port/Lost Abbey when they built their new, much larger facility. OK, but that's enough about the land owned by brewers... let's move on the the beer.
Every year Port Brewing Company brews up an anniversary beer... weird, right? This year's, was a Double India Pale Ale, same as the first two... So Port Brewing isn't that into surprises, but at least they cop to that fact on the label.
Otter Creek has never been known for their "big" or "extreme" beers. That all changed with the recent hiring of their new brewer, Mike Gerhart, formerly of Dogfish Head Brewing Company in Delaware. Mike came on and Otter Creek released a delicious and much-raved-about Russian Imperial Stout. But Mike had to prove that the RIS was not just a fluke... following it up with the Otter Creek Imperial India Pale Ale surely proves that he has earned the praise that his brewery has recently garnered! It pours a clear copper with some major head that isn't going anywhere... great for catching the delicious smells this ale puts off! 
We like beer and we like ice cream, so we thought why not combine the two? So many beers have flavors that lend themselves to dessert we thought we'd just make it official and come up with our own recipe. If you want to impress at a BBQ this summer show up a with a couple pints of this Southern Tier Mokah ice cream. Your friends will thank you. We hope you enjoy the recipe below as much as we do! The recipe below also works well with Southern Tier Java. We changed this recipe 3 times before it was good enough to share with you and we think its great now, but let us know if you make any changes for the better! - 3 cups half-and-half
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 8 large egg yolks
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 12 oz Southern Tier Mocha
- 1/2 Mexican Vanilla Bean
Split Vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the inside, keep pod. Add vanilla seeds and pod to the half-and-half and the heavy cream into a medium saucepan, over medium heat. Bring the mixture just to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and remove from the heat. Cover and let sit for 30 mins to infuse.
Place beer in small saucepan, cook until reduced to 1/2 cup. Set aside.
Whisk the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add sugar while whisking rapidly. Keep whisking until mixture falls from whisk in ribbon like form.
Temper the cream mixture gradually adding small amounts of cream into the eggs while stirring, until about a third of the cream mixture has been added. Pour remainder of cream in and transfer back to saucepan. Cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon and reaches 170 to 175 degrees F.
Pour the mixture into a container and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and once it is cool enough not to form condensation on the lid, cover and store for 8-12 hours.
Place beer reduction in separate container and cool in refrigerator.
After 8-12 hours stir in beer reduction to ice cream base.
Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's directions. This should take approximately 25 to 35 minutes. Serve as is for soft serve or freeze for another 3 to 4 hours to allow the ice cream to harden.
Cousin Oliver with Victory Prima Pils
While many Belgian breweries have created custom glassware for years, most American breweries glassware was the typical pint glass. Now don't get us wrong, we love the pint glass as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Sam Adams really went public with their new glassware a while back, and you'll often see it in their commercials. Now Dogfish Head has decided to come out with their own glassware as well. They were kind enough to send us a glass for us to check out. When we first got it the we liked it, but we were worried the base might be a bit too bulky. We resisted doing an immediate write up and mixed it in to our glassware. This glass has almost become a go to now. Shapes that initially felt bulky now felt sturdy and robust. The shape of the glass always seems to enhance hop aroma. There's some nice subtle styling too, a laser etched logo inside the bottom of the glass and another logo on the base. This is a really cool glass. Even cooler than the glass though is what we hope becomes a trend. We'd like to see more breweries come out with some unique glassware of their own.