Beer for dessert

Not as sweet as some others

I tucked in on a stormy evening for a desert beer with New Belgium and Ben & Jerry's Salted Caramel Brownie Brown Ale fully expecting an over the top sweet malt bomb with some salty chocolate flavors coming through. This is not the desert beer I was looking for. It's a tasty beer, but is more of a standard brown and not a candied treat. I was expecting a beer I would enjoy slowly sipping while the rain and wind lashed down. This is an easily drinkable brown that's only a bit on the sweet end for the style.

This is the problem with expectations. I was expecting something rather unusual and instead I got a solid brown ale. Is this a problem in the beer world? Are we always looking for something unusual, hoppier, higher AC, or a new ingredient to set a beer apart from the others? Are we always chasing the newest style or fad to set things apart? Yes, it's called marketing and as long as beer is made to be sold we will be sold to.

Now back to the ice cream. There is a fair amount of interesting ice cream flavors to be found here in Beervana. I've seen Olive Oil and unfortunately ran across Butternut Squash. There are many great things you can to to ice cream , chocolate and peanut butter being some of the best, but like beer it can get out of control. I haven't given a beer float a try yet, but this one is calling out for it.