We’re talking Yuengling and it isn’t beer! It’s National Ice Cream Month and we’re talking about Yuengling’s ice cream!
Pennsylvania is home to quite a few food and beverage companies, which this foodie family thinks is pretty awesome. Among those, we have pretzels, chips, scrapple, and yes, America’s oldest brewery, Yuengling, which also happens to make ice cream.
You may ask how Yuengling went from beer to ice cream, and I totally get it. The two do go really well together but it is an interesting business pairing. It all goes back to Prohibition. Prohibition meant breweries needed another form of income and Frank Yuengling started a dairy business to do just that. Now they’ve been making their ice cream for over 65 years.
Of course now we can have our ice cream AND beer. And before you ask, no, the Black and Tan ice cream isn’t made with Yuengling Black and Tan. That is, unless you put them together in a beer float, but that’s a recipe for another day.
I learned how to spell ice cream when I was very little. Not much escaped my ears, especially when it involved FOOD. My parents couldn’t get away with spelling things out because I would quickly learn what they were talking about, memorize it, then announce just what it was (ice cream), or after bedtime, when they thought pulling out the chips was safe, my little voice would pipe up from the bedroom, “Are you eating chips?” What can I say? I have food radar.
Well, Yuengling asked if I would do an ice cream review and what was I going to say? No? Ha. My food radar kicked into high gear and I was on it. My food radar is spot on because it said Yuengling’s ice cream would be good and it was right. Check out the video below for what two sisters thought of FIVE of Yuengling’s flavors. In case you are wondering, Yuengling has 14 regular flavors of ice cream and 2 seasonal flavors. You won’t be able to find every flavor in every store, but you can see if your store carries Yuengling’s ice cream with this store locator.
If you are looking for an ice cream that is incredibly creamy, you are looking at it. The flavors we tried are all mild and decadently creamy. After polling Facebook, I decided on Black and Tan, Sea Salt Caramel Swirl, Caramel Popcorn, Root Beer Float, and Espresso Chocolate Chip. I’ll let you watch our (amateur) taste test video to see what we thought of each one. And no, we hadn’t tried any of the flavors before we went on the record to give our thoughts. We wanted to give our real opinions without time to really think about it and I will say that after several more tastes we stand by those original opinions.
Yuengling’s Ice Cream Breakdown
- Black and Tan – Belgian chocolate and caramel. This is a favorite with us all. The chocolate is creamy and not too chocolaty for the unchocolaty among us. The caramel is also understated.
- Sea Salt Caramel Swirl – Described as sea salt caramel ice cream with rich swirls of caramel through it. I liked this one but in terms of sea salt I didn’t really get that salted flavor I love so much in salted caramel. I would buy it again but not for the sea salt.
- Caramel Popcorn – this was really like Boardwalk Popcorn. I loved the ‘burnt caramel’ taste that is so synonymous with caramel popcorn and the buttery popcorn flavor of the ice cream actually worked. That’s the part I had been really leery about.
- Rootbeer Float – My kids loved this one. Like, when they got to choose a second flavor they wanted it again kind of love. My sister and I both thought the initial flavor was of those root beer barrel candies, then it was followed by a creamy almost flavorless taste. I didn’t feel the flavors combined so well in my mouth. The concept is great though.
- Espresso Chocolate Chip – This is another favorite. I liked that this one is a good fit for people who also like a lot of cream with their coffee. It passed the radar of a coffee hater as acceptable. The coffee flavor isn’t exceptionally potent, so if you are looking for something that tastes strongly of coffee, you would likely not be thrilled with this one. I think it would be perfect in a mug of hot cocoa.
So now it’s your turn. Which Yuengling ice cream flavor do you think you would melt over? Give us the scoop below!
Steve says
You are right about the Root Beer. It would be better if they just used root beer ice and vanilla ice cream swirled together.
Heather says
That sounds like a great idea.