This week's Sunday Night Suds becomes Sundae Night Suds with a review of Max & Mina's Beer Ice Cream.
Not long after Mrs Kosher Beers and I got married and moved to Kew Gardens Hills (Queens), New York, a new ice cream store opened around the corner from our apartment. This was quite fortuitous for Sarah since we only had one car at the time and I took it to work most days. To combat the boredom (or perhaps to get our screaming first born out of the house) Sarah would go to Main Street and report back on what she saw. I learned that this new ice cream store had really off the wall flavors and soon I too was joining Sarah and Penina for visits to this quirky ice cream store.
Fast forward to May 24, 2010 and Sarah and I are leaving the Salute to Israel Parade in Manhattan with Penina (who had just completed her second march up 5th Avenue) and our three other children. After one of the kids asked for ice cream we toyed with the idea of stopping at Gristede's to buy a box of ice cream novelties. Then it hit us - since we would be driving home through Queens, why not take the kids to Max & Mina's (71-26 Main Street, Queens, New York 11367).
Since it opened in 1998, Max & Mina's has always been known for three things - its high quality ice cream, its off the wall flavors and its bizarre decor. Focusing strictly on the first two categories - Max & Mina's usually has a wide variety of traditional flavors as well as some which would appeal to the slightly adventurous. These ranged from Yodels (think Drakes) to horseradish, corn or cholent (obviously vegetarian).
During today's visit to Max & Mina's I saw a number of "interesting" flavors, including the aforementioned Beer Ice Cream (see picture below).
At the urging of my older daughters I asked for a sample of the Beer Ice Cream (the staff at Max & Mina's has always been very good about letting customers sample the flavors). I found it to be intriguing - it was a little creamy with like a lager aftertaste. I decided to go for it and ordered a small Beer cone. At first I think that the guy thought I was joking, but then he gave me a double scoop of Beer ice cream. Well, at least he tried to - the ice cream was very crumbly and kept falling off the cone, so he loaded it into a cup and gave me a cone to go with it.
This will sound bizarre, but the ice cream was really good. It was not a bitter and certainly was not hoppy, but there was a real beer taste to the ice cream. The ice cream was a light tan (think the head on Guinness) and was sweet, but there was definitely some lager flavor to it. I asked the guy behind the counter which beer they use in the process, but he did not know. He said that he thought it was something European, but that was not very helpful.
Max & Mina's is certified kosher by the Va'ad of Queens, and is not listed on Beer Advocate (sorry I could not resist). If you would like to read more about them you can click here http://www.maxandminasicecream.com/index.html or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_and_Mina.
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