Cherry Beer Cookies

A little back story for you here - We honeymooned in Boston in early September of course.  By then literally all of the east coast fall beer was already on tap in the city bars.  One of our big to-dos was visit the Samuel Adams brewery, which led us to the first pub that ever served Sam Adams beer.  If you make it there, show your brewery tour ticket, and buy a Sam Adams draft, you get to keep the glass.  And that's how I tried the cherry wheat ale.  It's amazing on tap.

With that said, I bought a 6 pack the other day and unfortunately am not liking it as much out of the bottle.  I thought "Oh I can definitely bake with this then."  But cupcakes are so hard to share if you aren't planning or attending an event.. like oh hey just had these extra cupcakes laying around that I wanted to share.  So I decided to take a shot at creating my own cherry beer cookies!

Cherry Beer Cookies

1 1/2 sticks butter - room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup Splenda brown sugar blend
1 tsp almond extract
1 12oz bottle of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat Ale
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup dried cherries
2 cups chocolate chips (I split mine, 1 cup white chocolate chips & 1 cup chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whip together the butter and both sugars.  Add in almond extract and begin adding beer in small increments.  Mix in flour, baking soda, and salt until ingredients are well incorporated.  Fold in cherries and chocolate chips.  Chill dough for about 20 minutes.  Drop dough onto baking sheets in tablespoon sized dollops.  Bake for 13-15 minutes or until bottoms are slightly golden.  Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes and transfer to cooling rack.

Cheers!