Flavor Frenzy 2018. They battled. We voted. I campaigned. Team peanut butter got the victory. After a grueling bracket filled with succulent scoops of Ample Hills’ past, the return of Peanut Butter Munchies became a reality. The nut-ified twist on AH’s classic combines a peanut butter pretzel custard with caramelized clusters of Ritz crackers, potato chips, pretzels, and Reese’s Pieces.

The peanut butter pretzel base shares a lot in common with its full time sister The Munchies, touting a thick, stick-to-your-ribs custard texture that in my experience is very unique to this flavor. The gluten from the pretzels gives it a sticky marshmallow-y presence that makes it a little gummy, but not in a bad way. It’s dense and creamy and almost like frozen frosting – those extra egg yolks really make for an epic spoonful of dairy delight.

The taste is yeasty and pretzel-y just like the original, with peanut butter coming in as a secondary supporting sensation. It’s delicious, but I can’t help but want a little more PB flavor to come through and make it stand out a bit more from the year-round offering. It’s a great authentic peanut flavor but it’s mild, and doesn’t have a ton of saltiness to back it up.

The caramelized clusters of Ritz, potato chips, and pretzels remain the star of the show. Big boulders of crunchy buttery slightly greasy mix-in magic. It’s essentially a toffee made out of junk food snacks and while the smaller pieces are good, the bigger ones are transcendent. There’s something really amazing about the way the crunch is able to stay so intense that makes eating a pint of The Munchies so damn fun.

While the M&M’s in the original Munchies never really did it for me, the Reese’s Pieces unfortunately don’t add to much either. The pieces are relatively small and chopped up to the point that they add a little bit of texture but not too much additional flavor. They don’t get as hard as M&M’s do in frozen form, which is a good thing, but I would have preferred they were fully intact to have a greater impact. Better yet, swap the pieces out with chunks of Ample Hills’ terrific peanut butter cups and we’d have a real winner on our hands.

Peanut Butter Munchies is a killer pint of ice cream, but truth be told it really isn’t that much different from the original. A greater PB presence in both the mix-ins and base could have taken this to undeniably perfect heights like Gooey Butter Cake and Big Ample Circus, but as it is it’s no better or worse than The Munchies, which in my book, is still quite stellar.

Rating: 9/10

Found at: http://www.amplehills.com