The Best Type Of Ice Cream To Make A Guinness Float

A root beer float is a welcome refreshment in the dog days of summer, but why not treat yourself to something a bit more lively? Most folks likely don't envision beer and ice cream as a match made in heaven, yet Guinness Brand Ambassador Colm O'Connor says it can work wonderfully. With the 25th anniversary of the Guinness Storehouse — a famous Irish tourist attraction — well underway with year-round events to celebrate the milestone, O'Connor took time out of his busy schedule to clue us into the best way to combine the flavors of Guinness and ice cream into one blissful experience.

Root beer floats typically call for vanilla ice cream, and getting it just right comes down to using the right type of glass (we recommend a frosty Anchor Hocking Glass 20-oz Beer Mug). However, with the beer's undertones of chocolate and coffee, vanilla ice cream actually isn't the finest choice for a Guinness float. Regarding which flavor is optimal, O'Connor said, "I think chocolate. I think caramel could work as well."

To make a Guinness float you can be proud of, he said, "Okay, so two scoops of ice cream at the bottom, obviously Guinness and maybe a bit of whipped cream at the top, and if you can get coffee beans or something like that, maybe on the top." Using chocolate ice cream and coffee beans accents the subtle notes of chocolate and coffee already in the beer. Whipped cream on top adds a creamy texture that brings the whole drink together.

When combining Guinness with ice cream, there is one part of the process you want to be cautious of, according to O'Connor. "When you pour it, because obviously that's carbonated. So when that counteracts with the ice cream, it can cause quite a commotion." Yet, some varieties of the stout work better than others, especially if they've been infused with nitrogen instead of the more standard carbon dioxide. "Another thing as well, by the way, with the nitro beer with Guinness drafts stout or whatever, that's not really a problem."

If you only have the beer in a bottle, you can still make it work if you pour patiently. "You can do it at a kind of a relative pace with the extra stout, which is the one in the bottle, that's the carbonated version of Guinness," said O'Connor. This is a good practice even when using a Guinness draft, which is a little more sedate, but "Not as much, but it will do it," per O'Conner. "It'll create a spectacle."

Touching back on the coffee beans that top the beverage, not just any raw or roasted coffee beans will do O'Connor noted, though "espresso beans if you can get those" are ideal. The concentrated coffee flavor in espresso beans further accents the coffee notes in Guinness, simultaneously bringing textural contrast. A Guinness float is a flavorful, refreshing adult-beverage variation of a drink with nostalgic connections to childhood, and it might be just the perfect thing for celebrating St. Patrick's Day when drinking beer is considered a rite of passage.