It’s Homer Simpson’s culinary dream: a beer that tastes like a doughnut.
Just the thing for a man who spends his nights drinking suds at Moe’s, and who emits an “mmm donuts” whenever he spies a deep-fried ring of sweetened dough.
Homer would be a happy man if he wandered into a handful of Nova Scotian establishments in the next little while.
There, Bart and Lisa’s pa will be able to buy a glass or a bottle of Lemon Meringue Doughnut IPA, Atlantic Canada’s first doughnut beer.
Its a joint venture between Vandal Doughnuts, in Gus’ Pub on Halifax’s Agricola Street, and Roof Hound Brewing, the Digby, N.S. microbrewery.
“We have combined lots of people’s favourite things,” says Les Barr, the owner and brewer at Roof Hound Brewing.
The beer, which he describes as both slightly sweet and slightly tart, includes lactose to get that meringue taste, along with toasted sugar, oats, wheat and cookie malt, a type of barley.
Oh yeah, it also includes Vandal’s signature lemon meringue doughnuts, a few dozen of which have been added to the limited single batch of 800 litres brewed in the Digby facility.
“It’s got that sweet and sour, pastry dough quality,” says Barr. “It brings you right back to when you were a kid with that combination of doughnuts and lemon meringue pie.”
Both partners in the venture are known more for pushing the envelope than trying to capitalize on old-time nostalgia.
Vandal, for instance, went viral on the internet when it launched its Tide Pod doughnut, and has even tried a storm chip variety which tasted “delicious” according to co-owner Sonia Mota but, with its coating of crumbled potato chips, was unpleasing to the eye.
Roof Hound, on the other hand, has produced a chocolate peanut butter wheat beer and a rum and raisin brown ale, along with a pineapple milkshake brew and a chocolate brown sour beer, made with a 100-year-old bacteria culture.
Its Big Stink IPA won best IPA at the 2017 Atlantic Beer Awards.
The Lemon Meringue Doughnut IPA will be launched on Thursday at parties at the Stubborn Goat Beer Garden in Halifax and the Roof Hound Brewery in Digby.
It is also available, while it lasts, in draft form at a variety of venues, including Battery Park in Dartmouth and Lane’s Privateer Inn and the Hell Bay Brewing Co. in Liverpool, and in growlers and bottles at a small number of private retail beer and spirit stores in the Halifax area, including Bishop’s Cellar, Harvest Wines and Spir
