Ben & Jerry's
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50 free Ben & Jerry's trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ben & Jerry's started as a single scoop shop run by two childhood friends and grew into one of the best-known ice cream brands in the world. Along the way it turned pint names into punchlines, picked fights with much bigger rivals, and treated its cartons as a place to argue for causes it cared about. This quiz covers the whole story: how Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield got started, what goes into flavors like Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey and Americone Dream, which musicians and TV hosts have had pints made in their honor, and which flavors ended up in the Flavor Graveyard. There are questions on the company's stunts, lawsuits and campaigns too. It is written for ice cream fans, trivia night hosts and anyone who has ever stood at the freezer door unable to choose. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few stories worth retelling.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ben & Jerry's chunky style grew out of co-founder Ben Cohen having almost none of which sense?
Smell
Smell is the sense Ben Cohen largely lacks, so he judged ice cream by texture and kept adding bigger and bigger chunks to keep it interesting.
Q 02Before settling on ice cream, the founders of Ben & Jerry's first planned to open a shop selling what?
Bagels
Bagels were the original plan, but the equipment cost too much, so Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield signed up for an ice cream course instead.
Q 03Ben & Jerry's opened its first scoop shop in Burlington, Vermont, inside what kind of renovated building?
A gas station
A gas station housed the first shop, which opened on a $12,000 investment. It was knocked down four years later to make room for a parking lot.
Q 04Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, its first flavor named for a rock legend, honors the guitarist of which band?
Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia got the tribute in 1987 after two fans from Portland, Maine, sent in the idea.
Q 05What happened to the Cowmobile, the mobile home Ben & Jerry's drove cross-country in 1986 serving free scoops?
It burned down
It burned down outside Cleveland four months into the trip. Nobody was hurt, and the two founders had been doing the driving and the scooping themselves.
Q 06Which late-night host inspired Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream, vanilla with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces?
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert chose the recipe from three unmarked pints he tasted with his family, and he gives his proceeds from the flavor to charity.
Q 07To protest oil drilling in a wildlife refuge, Ben & Jerry's hauled a 900-pound version of which dessert to the Capitol?
Baked Alaska
Baked Alaska made the point: the target was drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the giant dessert was built from Fossil Fuel ice cream.
Q 08In 2017, Ben & Jerry's shops in which country banned two scoops of the same flavor until same-sex marriage was legal?
Australia
Australia was the target: the ban on matching double scoops was meant to push customers into contacting their MPs about marriage equality.
Q 09Which band has a Ben & Jerry's flavor of chocolate ice cream with marshmallow and caramel swirls?
Phish
Phish Food comes studded with fudge fish, and the band steers part of its royalties from every pint toward protecting Lake Champlain's watershed.
Q 10At Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard in Vermont, what marks the resting place of each discontinued flavor?
A granite headstone
A granite headstone with a witty epitaph stands over every retired flavor, in a real plot on the hill above the factory that visitors can walk through.
Q 11Which multinational bought Ben & Jerry's in 2000 for $326 million while promising to keep its social mission?
Unilever
Unilever accepted an unusual condition to close the deal: an independent board stayed in place to guard Ben & Jerry's social mission and product quality.
Q 12Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack and The Tonight Dough were both created for which television host?
Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Fallon unveiled both flavors on air with the founders, and he donates his proceeds from The Tonight Dough to a network of camps for seriously ill children.
Q 13Which Ben & Jerry's flavor mixes chocolate and vanilla ice creams with cookie dough and fudge brownies?
Half Baked
Q 21Ben & Jerry's founders learned to make ice cream through a $5 correspondence course from which university?
Penn State
Penn State taught the pair by mail, and that $5 lesson plus $12,000, a third of it borrowed, was all they had when the first shop opened.
Q 22Which U.S. president named the founders of Ben & Jerry's Small Business Persons of the Year at the White House?
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan presented the award in the Rose Garden, where Jerry wore the one suit he owned and Ben turned up in an Italian waiter's jacket.
Q 23Ben & Jerry's Liz Lemon Greek frozen yogurt honored a sitcom character created and played by which comedian?
Tina Fey
Half Baked topped the company's own ranking of its most popular flavors in 2020, one place ahead of Cherry Garcia.
Q 14What was Ben & Jerry's celebrating when it launched Free Cone Day in 1979?
Its first anniversary
Its first anniversary was the occasion: the founders thanked the customers who had kept the shop alive with free scoops all day, and the giveaway spread to shops worldwide.
Q 15Which rival ice cream brand tried to squeeze Ben & Jerry's out of Boston freezers in 1984, prompting a lawsuit?
Häagen-Dazs
Häagen-Dazs pressed its Boston distributors to drop the newcomer, so Ben & Jerry's sued its owner, Pillsbury, and ran a cheeky campaign aimed at the Doughboy.
Q 16Which streaming service teamed up with Ben & Jerry's on a peanut butter ice cream with pretzel swirls and brownies?
Netflix
Netflix lent its name to Netflix & Chilll'd, a pint pitched at viewers who can't decide between a sweet snack and a salty one.
Q 17Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey loads banana ice cream with fudge chunks and which kind of nut?
Walnuts
Walnuts give Chunky Monkey its crunch, and the recipe proved sturdy enough to be one of the first four flavors remade without dairy in 2016.
Q 18Before co-founding Ben & Jerry's, Jerry Greenfield was rejected more than once when applying to study what?
Medicine
Medicine was the goal after his pre-med studies, but two rounds of rejections left him working as a lab technician until the ice cream idea came along.
Q 19Ben & Jerry's marked Elton John's first Vermont concert with a flavor punning on which of his albums?
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road became Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road in 2008, a flavor made to welcome Elton John to Vermont for the first concert he had ever played there.
Q 20Ben & Jerry's teamed up with which sportswear brand on a sneaker called the Chunky Dunky?
Nike
Nike released the Chunky Dunky as a special edition of its SB Dunk Low skate shoe, which is where the Dunky in the name comes from.
Tina Fey's lead character from the NBC sitcom 30 Rock joined the company's Greek frozen yogurt line in 2013, a year after the line launched.
Q 24Ben & Jerry's retired flavor Fossil Fuel hid fudge pieces shaped like which creatures in sweet cream ice cream?
Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs made of fudge were the draw of Fossil Fuel, which lasted five years on shelves before it was buried in the Flavor Graveyard in 2010.
Q 25Which Ben & Jerry's flavor, vanilla malt ice cream with fudge-covered pretzels, began as a prank on a co-worker?
Chubby Hubby
Chubby Hubby started as a lie: two pranksters convinced a colleague the flavor already existed, felt guilty, and made him a real batch that everyone loved.
Q 26Ben & Jerry's flavor Wavy Gravy was named for a clown and activist best known from which music festival?
Woodstock
Woodstock made Wavy Gravy famous as the man making announcements from the stage, and sales of his flavor helped pay for underprivileged kids to attend his camp.
Q 27Ben & Jerry's first vegan pints, launched in 2016 after a fan petition, swapped dairy for a drink made from what?
Almonds
Almonds supplied the base after fans petitioned for a dairy-free pint, and the first four flavors included vegan takes on two existing flavors.
Q 28Which Vermont town is home to the only Ben & Jerry's factory that opens its doors for public tours?
Waterbury
Waterbury has the company's very first factory, built in 1985, which still turns out upwards of 350,000 pints a day while tour groups watch from above.
Q 29Ben & Jerry's made the first Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream in 1984 after what sparked the idea?
An anonymous note
An anonymous note on the shop's suggestion board asked for it, but the flavor took until 1991 to reach pints, where it shot to the top of the best-seller list.
Q 30Ben & Jerry's renamed a flavor Yes Pecan to celebrate the election victory of which U.S. president?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama's win inspired the name, a pun on his campaign's rallying cry, and the proceeds from the flavor were donated to a nonprofit education fund.