Food
Cookie Butter Beer Is Coming To Trader Joe’s This Fall
Please scream accordingly.
Hark! I come bearing good and delicious news. As Delish reports, Trader Joe’s just announced a new Cookie Butter Beer is coming soon. If you heard something, that was just my bank account emptying itself into a Trader Joe’s till.
The new beer and cookie butter hybrid was announced in the most recent episode of the “Inside Trader Joe’s” podcast. (Yes, of course, the popular grocery chain has a podcast. It is 2020. Our grocers have podcasts and our cookie butter has an ABV.) The podcast hosts say the beer isn’t something you sip on while mowing the lawn or crack open to watch a football game. As Trader Joe's Vice President of Marketing Matt Sloan states, “It’s people watching polo with Cookie Butter Beer, you know what I mean?” I absolutely do.
The forthcoming Cookie Butter Beer is two years in the making, Trader Joe's Product Developer Catherine Rhodes explains on the podcast. She estimates this version is likely number 18. “It originally started off as a porter base,” Rhodes continues, “but you really couldn't taste the cookie butter at all or really pick up on the aromatics.” They ended up switching it to an imperial ale, which is what you’ll find sold in stores this fall.
At 9.5% ABV, the Cookie Butter Beer isn’t joking around. It’ll have the classic notes of Speculoos Cookie butter, like gingerbread and cinnamon, packed into each glass. While they haven’t announced an exact release date, the podcast says you should expect to see the Cookie Butter Beer in stores sometime in September. Finally, you can have your cookie butter and drink it, too.
If you have yet to be indoctrinated into the Church of Cookie Butter, now is as good a time as any. The sweet, gingerbread cookie-esque dessert spread is so popular, people resell Trader Joe’s Speculoos Cookie butter at a steep markup online. In a 2019 episode of “Inside Trader Joe’s,” Trader Joe’s VP for marketing and merchandising, Mitch Heeger, said that when Cookie Butter was at peak popularity, jars were selling out in a matter of hours. “Stores would order 10 cases,” Heeger explains, “and someone would come in and say, ‘I’d like 10 cases’ and they’d just wheel it out for ‘em.” Not 10 jars. 10 cases. A case of Trader Joe’s cookie butter typically has 12 jars. In other words, people were buying their cookie butter by the dozens, hundreds even.
If the Cookie Butter Beer isn’t enough to have you pumped for fall, the recent “Inside Trader Joe’s” episode announced three more dessert beers to look forward to. There’ll be a Coffee Peanut Butter Cup Porter, which uses peanut butter powder and will probably pair perfectly with Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups. There will also be a new Ginger Bread Spiced Stout and a Toasty Cookie Spice Cider. In other words, if cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and clove are your thing, these new beverages will be right up your alley.
Finally, Trader Joe’s will also be bringing back two fall fan favorites from last year: Howling Gourd Pumpkin Ale and Gourd Tree Pumpkin Cider. They’re sweet. They’re spicy. They’ll have you saying, “Pumpkin spice, who?”
Keep an eye out for the new Cookie Butter Beer and its dessert beer brethren in September!
