With sunshine and warm days ahead, it’s time to put away winter beers and reach for lighter, thirst-quenching, summer beers. Pair that other summertime favorite — ice cream — with your next beer, and you can cool yourself down even more effectively and more deliciously. While beer and ice cream is not a terribly intuitive combination, the resulting beer float can be delicious — if you choose the ingredients with care.
It’s not quite as simple as just mixing and matching a pint of your favorite ice cream with a pint of your favorite beer. That way lies madness. First, consider the root beer float.
The first root beer float was made on Aug. 19, 1893 at the Cripple Creek Brewing Co. in Colorado, so given its brewery origin, it’s not a stretch to substitute beer.
Just take away the root and a beer float can be every bit as delicious. The key is the right pairing. My favorite floats start with vanilla ice cream, and while any vanilla will work, vanilla bean or French vanilla ice cream work best.
Then pour your beer over it, just like you would a root beer float, and add a straw and spoon. But which beer? Generally, mass-produced light lagers and hop-forward IPAs don’t lend themselves well to enjoying with ice cream. But a rich, nutty porter is divine, and a stout works well, too, though you’ll want a stout that’s not too strong (so no Imperial or Russian stouts).
A porter that’s nicely malty with hints of nuttiness really pairs beautifully with the vanilla. If .
