On Sunday, Tap & Bottle celebrated National Girl Scout Cookie Day by hosting a pairing party of each of the famous Girl Scout cookies with a different craft beer. 

The event is a result of the combined efforts of Rebecca Safford, who owns the local craft beer and wine tasting room with her husband, and Sarah Ritchie, who co-founded the Tucson chapter of Girls Pint Out with her friend, Victora Parridgen. Girls Pint Out is a national nonprofit focusing on craft beer and the women that are passionate about it.

Ritchie, friends with Safford through the beer community, approached her to do an event similar to those which she had seen done before.

“I’d read about other states doing something similar where people had done craft beer pairings with Girl Scout cookies before, and the Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona do a cocktail and cookie pairing event,” Ritchie said.

Three of Ritchie’s ardent supporters in Girls Pint Out are also staff members of Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona and used their knowledge to help Ritchie.

Prior to Sunday, over 300 people had RSVP’ed on Facebook that they were “going” to the event. The potential for such a large attendance prompted the hosts to extend the event for three hours, ending at 6 p.m.

Nevertheless, a few minutes prior to the official start at 3 p.m., Tap & Bottle was already filling up. Within half an hour, the line to purchase beer snaked into the back corner of the room, and elbowroom was at a premium. Safford, who manned the cookie handout along with Ritchie and Parridgen, commented that she called in two additional employees to come and help with the deluge of craft beer and cookie enthusiasts.

Four of the most familiar, as well as best-selling, names in Girl Scout cookies were paired with four different craft beers, one of which was actually brewed locally.

Samoas, the striped caramel and toasted coconut-covered cookie, were paired with Orabelle, a Belgian-style tripel ale from Great Divide Brewing. The crispy, chocolate-covered peanut butter Tagalongs were matched with Camp Robber Coffee Porter from Big Sky Brewing. The traditional shortbread Trefoils, so named after the iconic Girl Scouts logo that the cookie takes its shape from, were coupled with Grapefruit Sculpin, a tart Indian Pale Ale.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Thin Mint, which had the honor of being put together with the Girls Pint Stout, the only beer of the four brewed by Tucson Girls Pint Out. It is a Russian Imperial Stout with chocolate and Munich malts that is run through a Randall of mint and cocoa nibs.

“Thin Mints are the best cookie on Earth,” Ritchie said.

Two of the many people packed in were David and Vanessa Arellano. Already familiar fans of the variety and ambience of Tap & Bottle, it was a no-brainer for the husband and wife to come out.

“When we heard about this, we were like, ‘It’s awesome, it’s a good cause, good beer, and Tap & Bottle is awesome,’” David Arellano said. “‘Everything’s awesome, so we’re going to go.’”

The Arellanos had a flight of all four beers. Customers could either choose each beer individually or opt for smaller flights of all four. David Arellano had already tried the stout and Thin Mint combination.

“I think any dark beer with a Thin Mint would be good at this point,” David Arellano said. “It was pretty good. I liked it.”

One store front down from Tap & Bottle, outside of the noisy, shoulder-to-shoulder confines is a lone stand, run by a young Girl Scout Daisy whose prime real estate may very well may have ended up making her the most profitable scout in Tucson for the day. Piper, along with her father Dan Gibson, had provided 31 boxes thus far for the beer pairing, and was selling additional boxes to anyone else with a craving.

“People have been really generous and kind out here, too,” Gibson said. “Tap and Bottle is a very community-oriented place, so this kind of works itself out with that, too.”

Between inside and the stand outside, Piper could sell approximately 100 boxes. It might come as no surprise as to which flavor will be the best seller.

“Hands down, Thin Mints,” Gibson said.

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