Beer Wares

Wheeler’s Black Label Vegan Ice Cream
Consider this pie-in-the-sky idea: Imagine any beer of your choice—a chocolatey-rich Stout, a refreshing Mexico quaff, your own genius homebrew—transformed into an ice cream. Wheeler del Torro, Boston-based founder and mastermind behind his eponymous line of custom vegan ice creams and sorbets, can make that cream dream come true. With immaculately accurate flavor profile intensity, he can work anything, beer or otherwise, into a customized dessert. His repertoire is unlimited, and his specialty is alcohol-based flavors: He’s done a heady Sam Adams Utopias ice cream and has been known to create a killer sorbet using entire bottles of Dom Pérignon Rosé.

“I can make any flavor ice cream that you can come up with,” del Torro says. “I can make absolutely anything.” His spin is a vegan one, mastering recipes produced without animal products or by-products—instead of cow milk or cream, the desserts contain soy, coconut, rice or almond milk. But before you start missing the dairy, just consider that a very emphatic carnivore (i.e., me) absolutely went nuts over Wheeler’s product. It really is that good. Custom flavors require at least a purchase of three gallons’ worth (one batch), and del Torro “would prefer to work with vegan-approved alcohol.” So if your selection is safe from animal filtration methods such as isinglass or bone char, you’re good to go. Try not to go too crazy in the meantime thinking about enjoying a beer float with a perfectly complementary beer ice cream imparting cold, melty, frosty goodness.

The Book of Beer Knowledge: Essential Wisdom for the Discerning Drinker by Jeff Evans

I would almost swear off the bottle completely to crawl into Jeff Evans’ brain. Where in the world did this ostensible beer geek find the time, or the energy, to compile so much random drinking facts to the educated amusement of the distracted reader? Trivia flies off the page from all directions at about a million hops a mile—from cataloging the top 10 highly collectable bottled beers to dissecting popular pub Skittles games; from quoting beery passages from the annals of Charles Dickens and Shakespeare to listing beers with unusual ingredients (like Sharp’s Chalky’s Bite made with fennel seeds). Even Homer Simpson’s drinking buddies get a shout-out. The following passage, “The Sweet Smell of Excess,” cannot go undocumented:

Sometimes family commitments mean you can’t get out to the pub, which, for some people, can seriously damage their street credibility. Now those desperate to show their mates that they haven’t been decorating or helping with the homework can bluff their way back into favour by adding a dab of German perfume behind their ears. In 2002 an intriguing fragrance was invented by pub landlord Peter Inselkammer, a fragrance that smells delightfully of stale beer and cigarette ends. Inselkammer named the perfume Armbrustschützenzelt (‘Crossbow Tent’), after the famous beer tent he runs at Munich’s Oktoberfest. At around £95 (US $175) per bottle, it could be the answer to the prayers of many frustrated males.

Brilliant.

The book itself, published by CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), is a handsome reference, perfectly sized for perusal, complete with ribbon bookmark and a most elegant typeface. Essential? Agreed. [$19.95, hardcover]

Glasi Hergiswil Pilsner Glass

The first thing you notice after sliding the beer glass out of its box—one which is tall, white and deftly blessed with the Scandinavian mark of minimalism—is a pure radiance and a lightweight sophistication. This baby’s no less than premium, and whispers its magnificence within the seductive curves of its form. Could you even touch its beauty with the addition of beer? Mmm. Definitely.

The long, thin silhouette is designed to showcase the color, effervescence and clarity of the beer. The hop aromas are focused for optimal enjoyment, while the head is maintained and retained within the sleek tapered sides. Head-hunters, consider this your new lust item.

Handcrafted and individually mouthblown from lead-free crystal, the glasses are constructed in Switzerland by Glasi Hergiswil artisans “in the shores of Lake Lucerne, surrounded by the idyllic Swiss Alps.” In addition to eschewing lead, more eco-friendly manufacturing approaches include recovering and re-circulating hot air emitted from the furnace and using a filtration system in the factory that collects dust particles, purifies the air and recovers the dust by recycling it back into the glass mixture. Pretty swell for a company with roots back to 1817.

If you’re so inclined to develop a budding collection of this premium Swiss glassware, the full collection (in addition to the Pilsner glass) includes wine/champagne stemware, a decanter and an ice cooler. Time to swankify your drinking artillery, stat. [$28, available at terrakeramik.ch] ■