Granular's Girl Scout Cookie Pairing Guide
What do you do when the office impulse buys hundreds of cookies from a local Girl Scout?
Throw a cookie and beer pairing happy hour, of course!
And, since we’re data nerds, you can bet we polled our participants and made charts and graphs based on the results, all of which are posted within this comprehensive guide!
That’s right, the Granular team ate and drank a bunch of cookies and beer to find the perfect pairings, so you don’t have to!
Background:
Last week, we stopped at Total Wine to build a six-pack with different beers we thought would pair well with the cookies. This was much more challenging than we expected, especially since we had little knowledge of what even makes a good pairing. So like any good taste connoisseur, we went with a solid mix of “what sounded good” and which cans had the best artwork.
The Pairings:
Tagalong: For the Tagalong cookie, we wanted to find a beer that enhanced the peanut butter and chocolate tastes of the cookie while remaining smooth and light in flavor. We thought that Oliphant Brewing’s Honees Honees Peanut Butter & Honey Golden Ale was the best option.
Lemon-Ups: Next, we paired the Lemon-Ups cookie with Left Hand Brewing Co’s Flamingo Dreams Berry Blonde Ale. This pairing absolutely screamed summer to us, which was appropriate given that it was 30 degrees and pouring outside when we had the tasting. Unfortunately, we’ve recently learned that this beer is no longer being manufactured due to the rising cost of raspberries, so this is likely the last can available to buy.
Do-Si-Do: We wanted to take a different approach with the other peanut butter-based cookie, the Do-Si-Dos, and create a more aromatic flavor pairing. We were in the market for an IPA and the AOC IPA from Minocqua Brewing Company stood out to us.
Trefoil: One of my favorite kinds of cookies to enjoy with a glass of milk is the Trefoil, a simple yet well-known shortbread. Instead of milk, we paired this cookie with the delicious Benediktiner Weissbier in the hopes that its crispness and malty flavor would create a powerful flavor combination.
Thin Mint: When trying to find the right combination for Thin Mint, we had many options. Instead of choosing a beer that went well with the chocolatey peppermint flavor, we chose Energy City Brewery Ratisserie Mint Chocolate Chip Stout, which we thought would be the liquid equivalent of a thin mint.
Toffee-tastic biscuit: We decided that a dark beer would complement the buttery sweetness of the toffee chunks in the Toffee-tastic biscuit the best. We chose the Good Cheer Dark Lager from Third Space since they are located right down the street from us.
Adventureful cookie: We had planned to pair the Untitled Art Carmel Coconut Cookie Pastry Stout with the Samoas cookie, but on the day of the pairing, we discovered that the office had already gone through all of the boxes of Samoas that we had ordered…clearly a Granular favorite. We made an audible and paired this Stout with the Adventureful cookie, which we believed would go well together because of the common caramel taste.
The Results:
Some Additional Fun Visuals Because We’re Nerds:
