New meaning to a cold one

THE WASHINGTON TIMES This is one popsicle the kids aren’t going to like.

It’s also one they can’t have. Last week, Alexandria, Va.’s Rustico Restaurant and Bar started selling “beer-sicles.” They come in flavors like Fudgesicle, made with a dark beer called Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout; Raspbeer-y, made with St. Louis Framboise; and Plum, made with a Chapeau Mirabelle.

“It tastes like beer on a stick,” said Frank Morales, executive chef with Rustico. He worked on the popsicle with the restaurant’s beer director, Greg Engert.

Other flavors — like Banana, made with Chapeau Banana Lambic — will be sold on a rotating basis. All will cost $4 for the traditional form on a stick and $6 for a beer cone, a larger version of the beer-sicle.

So far, customers are enjoying the frozen treat, Mr. Morales said.

“It’s interesting. It’s definitely gender-related,” he said. “Guys are more apt to try them first.”

However, after the guy has shared the beer-sicle with his significant other or his friends, more orders tend to come in, he said.

Mr. Morales won’t release his recipe, but he said that almost 99 percent of the beer-sicle is pure beer. He added that the all-natural beer-sicles reflect Rustico’s focus on organic ingredients.

The beer-sicle freezes at 30 degrees, Mr. Morales said. And the melting rate depends on air temperature.

“It would have been the perfect hangover remedy,” he remembers one customer saying.

The idea came when Mr. Morales was thinking of the perfect way to clear the palate after a large meal. Beer seemed to be a fitting end.

“I was amazed at how good it was,” Mr. Morales said. “It’s really novel. It’s fun on a hot summer day because they’re quite refreshing.

The beer-sicle will be sold through September.

Come fall, Mr. Morales said he plans to begin work on a beer banana split.

“I’m thinking of beer as a condiment,” he said.

But the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) is not.

The agency says the beer-sicles run afoul of rules governing the serving and pouring of beer. Special agent Philip Disharoon says the law requires beer to be served in its original container, or served immediately to a customer once it is poured from its original container. The department plans to send an investigator to check it out.

A spokeswoman for the restaurant says they will keep selling the beer-sicles and work with the ABC to make them legal.

c This article is based in part on wire service reports.