Newcastle Brown Ale ice cream – a step too far?

It may have been released back in 2003, but strangely it took a short break to Sweden for me to finally cross paths with Newcastle Brown Ale ice cream. “This will totally blow your mind,” says the bloke who hands it to me at the Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival. Dressed as a 1950’s ice-cream salesman, he looks more like Andre 3000 in an Outkast video. I asked him if he’d tried it. “Oh yeah” he said. Did you like it? “Sure I did – it’s amazing” he replies, somewhat unconvincingly.

Well, beer festivals are all about trying new things, after all. I take the sticky tub over to a nearby table. The carton label tells me to ‘Try something a little different’. Fair enough – it certainly looks like ice cream, toffee-brown colour. The flavour, though, is really quite something. For one thing, it really does taste of beer – and not just any beer, the thing actually tastes of Newkie Brown. Quite amazing.

There’s a fairly standard sweet, vaguely vanilla-ish taste at first. Just as you start thinking “Hmmm…I thought this was going to taste of…” – it tastes of beer. Just like that. The flavours switch to sweet malt, and then become sour and bitter. You can only applaud the skill of the iced artisans at Doddington’s. Having said all that though, after three or four scoops, I’d had enough. Accurate it may be, but nice…well…