Here’s the beer popsicles story.

Will and I picked up my mom at National around 8:30 on April 27th.  I thought we’d stop at Rustico for a pizza and some mosaics, considering that I was a fan and it was close by.  

My mother, by the way, is 64, my height, good looking, and about ten pounds lighter than I am.  Though I’m glad for my mom, it sort of depresses me that I’m 34 and people ask if we’re sisters.  She’s not a vanity freak.  She’s had no plastic surgery.  Where did I go wrong?  In any event, one thing that may keep her young is that she’s not a big beer drinker.  Clearly, Rustico as our dinner choice was partially selfish since I really like beer.  We order a pizza and air-dried beef with the beer pairing:

Air-Dried Beef      (15 trio or 7 each)                     

• with Vermont Butter and Cheese fromage blanc, baby arugula             
• with Fuyu persimmons and 25 year old balsamic                                  
• with Butter greens and toasted coriander

Beer Pairing      (7 for trio)

• Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted
• Guinness Stout
• Humboldt Red Nectar

Next thing we know, two hours later, we have 200 glasses on the table, my mom’s drunk, we’ve just polished off a vat of crab mac and cheese, and I’m wondering who’s going to drive home.  We decide to skip dessert, but Chef Morales insists we try what was to become the plum lambic popsicle. 

Ok. We’ll try a beer popsicle.

It wasn’t in its proper form yet.  It was more of what I remembered as a beer slushie, which,  in retelling the story last night, I’d been corrected– it was a beer granita served in a dainty half-pint glass. So what. Who wouldn’t love frozen dessert beer? I was starry-eyed.

Since then, I had been fantasizing about and talking up the beer popsicle.  A few weeks later, Ann Limpert from Washingtonian asked several internet nerds to respond to about fifteen or so questions about the Best and Worst of Washington for the July issue.  For “Best Cool Treat,” I answered, beer popsicles, of course.  I didn’t realize when I mentioned them that, while they were available, they weren’t yet on the menu.  So Rustico hadn’t sold any yet. This past Monday, the press release on beer popsicles was sent out,  AP picks up the story, and. . . there you have it.  

The good news is, they’re for sale today, albeit in a modified recipe that should appease Virginia’s ABC.  If you like beer, don’t walk, run.  They’re that good.  But really, Chef Morales should be getting kudos for what he’s concocting for the mosaics that are much more interesting than the beer pops–renamed hopsicles.