A Boozy Beer Sorbet Will Be The Best Dessert Of Your Life This Summer

The dog days of summer are so much better with homemade sorbet. As the days warm up, we pull out the ice cream maker and let it churn on the front porch, or use one of the many ways to make sorbet or ice cream without a machine. And after a long day of playing in the heat — or keeping up with the summertime version of your kids — a bowl of your favorite sorbet just sets everything right. But what if you could double down on relaxation and add a little booze to the mix? While the kids dig into their alcohol-free version of homemade bliss, put some beer in your batch for your very own frosty treat with a tipsy twist.

Sorbet and ice cream are both frozen, churned desserts. Ice cream is made with a milk base and sorbet usually made with water, sugar, and some kind of fruit. Both ice cream and sorbet can be made with beer, and their qualities are a little different. Sorbet usually has a brighter, more intense flavor profile than ice cream to begin with, and that characteristic applies when you make it with beer. It's fairly easy to make, too: Just add beer to your regular sorbet recipe and pour it all into the ice cream maker as usual.

You really can make sorbet out of pretty much anything, so why not add some of your favorite beer to your ice cream maker and have a frozen, frosty, boozy treat? Just match the flavor profiles of whatever kind of sorbet you envision, remembering that your choice of beer results in a sorbet that's more fruity, hoppy, or sour. Fruity beers are perfect for making a boozy fruit sorbet; for instance, a raspberry wheat beer in a raspberry sorbet creates a tangy and sweet dessert with a fruity, hoppy undertone. Wild ales, with their natural fermentation and fruit-forward flavors, are a great way to split the difference between a fruity and a more gentle-tasting sorbet.

Or maybe you want the beer flavor in your sorbet to outshine all other ingredients. There's a way to do that: Instead of combining fruit or other things into your sorbet for flavoring, only add beer and sugar, with maybe some lemon to round out the taste. A blond ale, for instance, creates a simple, sweet, and balanced sorbet that's light and refreshing. Eat it straight out of a bowl or serve in a more unique and eye-catching way to impress guests, depending on the vibe you're trying to achieve, and be sure to store it the right way to prevent freezer burn.