I wasn’t sure of the direction I wanted to go in for my final beer cocktail of this series, but I met a Dogfish Head sales rep last week and had the opportunity to taste their SeaQuench Ale. I was so impressed with it that my wheels immediately began spinning to find ways to work it into a drink. Hailed by Men’s Health Magazine as possibly “the world’s most thirst-quenching beer,” things like margaritas and mojitos immediate came to mind. SeaQuench is a session sour, which means that it is a beer brewed to have an intentionally sour taste, and its ABV (alcohol by volume) is between 3% and 5%. So you can drink lots and not fall off your barstool as you celebrate summer during a Friday happy hour! That falling part is never a good thing. Dogfish Head actually developed the beer with the two geographic locations for which its seafood restaurant, Chesapeake & Maine, is named. Brewed with black limes, lime peel, and sea salt, it does indeed hit the mark as a major thirst quencher, as well as being a lighter style beer that’s perfect for summer. I didn’t get the opportunity to try it with seafood, but I can easily imagine drinking it while sitting right on the water somewhere eating hardshell crabs…

As for my cocktail, I thought back to a post that I’d written in September of 2016 about a drink called a Twisted Gimlet that a friend requested I make for her after she’d had it in a bar in Miami. It was one of the first drinks I’d ever tried to replicate and embellish on my own, and so I will aways have a certain fondness for it. Made with vodka, St Germain, lime, jalapeño, and cucumber, its flavors definitely scream summer, with one drawback: it’s a drink that’s served up in a cocktail glass, and an up drink in the summer has to be consumed very quickly or it becomes too warm to enjoy. Can we talk about that falling off the barstool thing again?? The SeaQuench Ale gave me the perfect opportunity to remedy this problem. What if I added the beer to the Twisted Gimlet ingredients and served in on the rocks in a Collins glass? I’ll answer that question for you. It was fabulous, of course! The beer added just the right amount of dryness, sour tang, and carbonation to turn the drink into a true Collins. It could be appropriately served over ice and consumed slowly without any fear of it warming up too quickly. The SeaQuench Ale’s flavor perfectly echoed that of the Twisted Gimlet, and together they formed a sublime summer cocktail! Cheers everyone. Happy Monday!

Twisted Collins

2 oz Stateside Vodka (locally distilled in Philadelphia)
1/2 oz St. Germain
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz jalapeno simple syrup*
4 oz Dogfish Head SeaQuench Ale
2 slices cucumber for muddling

Muddle the cucumber slices together with the jalapeño simple in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add the remaining ingredients along with ice and shake until cold. The beer will build pressure, so release the shaker a few times so it doesn’t pop. Pour into a Collins glass over fresh ice and garnish with cucumber, lime, and jalapeño slices. Enjoy!