The Best Expert-Approved Pairings For The Ultimate Beer Ice Cream Float

When we think of good things to eat with beer, chances are that the first foods that come to mind are savory treats like sausages and chips. While these pairings are classics for good reason, beer is a far more versatile beverage than many of us realize. For one, the world of beer encompasses way more than the pale, quaffable liquid of college kegs and ballpark concession stands. Beer flavor profiles can range from intensely bitter and hoppy, to fruity and sour, to rich and sweet.

This means that beer can pair with a surprisingly wide range of foods, including ice cream. While beer floats may sound like something concocted by drunken undergraduates on a dare, smart mixologists and brewpubs have been serving them up for years to the surprise and delight of diners. By mixing your choice of ice cream and beer, you can create treats for every mood and palate. 

To find the best pairings for boozy ice cream floats, Chowhound spoke exclusively to six experts. Our recommendations come from Luke Slater, beer connoisseur at The Cask Connoisseur; Brian Koch, head brewer at Phantom Canyon Brewing Company; Katherine Benecke, certified cicerone and general manager of Treadwell Park; Matthew Malloy, CEO of Dorchester Brewing; Joel Shields, head brewmaster at Rogue; and finally, Jennifer Glanville, director of partnerships and collaborations at Samuel Adams' philanthropic program Brewing the American Dream. 

The flavor of dark beer can come as a surprise if you've never had it before. Porters and stouts can have distinct flavors of coffee or chocolate, even if they contain neither of these ingredients. This is because dark beers get both their color and their distinct roasted, nutty flavors from dark malt — or malted barley grains that are roasted until they darken and their sugars caramelize.

These sweet, toasty flavor notes make stouts one of the most common bases for beer floats (the Guinness floats you'll start to notice around St. Patrick's Day are a good example of this). Matthew Malloy, of Dorchester Brewing, finds that stouts marry well with mocha almond ice cream, with flavors of nuts, chocolate, and coffee that echo the flavors of the beer. 

"Our favorite pairing so far is a mocha almond ice cream with Dorchester Brewing's Cobblestone Stout," he said. "All the flavors simply work perfectly together. A little messy to drink, but that's part of the fun."

As any pastry chef can confirm, vanilla ice cream makes all desserts better. Do you have a sad, dry cake or ugly cobbler? Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and they become memorable treats. In the handful of drinks that feature ice cream, such as affogato — a classic Italian dessert of hot espresso topped with ice cream — the chilly topper is always a scoop of vanilla. It offers coolness, creaminess, and a hint of extra flavor without overpowering the drink.

A scoop of vanilla ice cream also transforms a chocolatey stout into something like a grown-up chocolate soda. "A chocolate stout (whether nitro or not) tends to be velvety and full of chocolate and malty flavors, thanks to the cocoa and roasted malts used," Joel Shields, of Rogue, explained. 

"The natural sweetness and creamy mouthfeel of Rogue's Double Chocolate Stout already gives a dessert-like quality, making it an ideal base for a beer float. The vanilla ice cream acts as a smooth, mellow counterpart, balancing the stout's bittersweet cocoa notes." In addition, the carbonation of the beer can create an airy texture with a smooth mouthfeel, he said. 

With a little thought and creativity, almost any beer can be transformed into a flavorful float. The secret is to find an ice cream flavor that will complement it without overwhelming it. But there's no need to overthink it –- the only real rule for beer floats is that there are no hard and fast rules. "Number one with all beer and food pairings is to have fun with it," says Jennifer Glanville, of Brewing the American Dream. "Trust your taste buds and get creative."

For instance, you don't have to limit your ice cream choices to mild, unobtrusive flavors such as vanilla –- bolder flavors can be great matches for beer too. Glanville isn't afraid to pair chocolate ice cream with beer, and yes, it really does work. "For decades, one of our favorites has been our cherry wheat paired with chocolate ice cream," she said. "The fruit flavors in the beer highlight the cocoa flavors in the beer, creating harmony on the palate."

Those who are familiar with beer floats are accustomed to seeing them made with dark, sweet, toasty beers such as stouts. But many drinkers find these beers, tasty as they are, too heavy to enjoy during the hot months of summer, even when topped with ice cream. "My pairings change based on the seasons," Glanville said. "One of my favorite summer treats is a Samuel Adams Porch Rocker and vanilla float."

The Porch Rocker is a lemon radler, a fruity, low-proof concoction with roots in Germany. In the 1920s, a German innkeeper, overwhelmed by a crowd of thirsty cyclists on one sunny afternoon, found himself running short on beer. Thinking quickly, he diluted the beer he had on hand with lemon soda, and the light, tangy drink proved to be a hit with the crowd. 

If you think this sounds suspiciously like a shandy, you're right: They're pretty much the same thing, only shandies emerged independently in England. Whatever you call them, their light, fruity sweetness makes them a great base for a summery float. "The lemon flavor in the beer is the perfect contrast to the rich, creamy flavors of the ice cream," Glanville said. "You can use different radlers or a hazy IPA as well."

Flavor pairings are typically all about balance, choosing contrasting flavors that play against each other nicely. But if you love a certain flavor, sometimes more is more –- instead of playing down dominant flavor notes, you can lean into and accentuate them. 

For instance, Glanville likes to showcase the coffee-like notes of a black lager with coffee ice cream. "I love coffee, so this may not be for everyone, but I love a traditional black lager with coffee ice cream. The beer has intense notes of coffee but a lighter body than you would expect from the color, so it complements the ice cream and adds a lingering, very pleasant coffee finish."

Black lager, or schwarzbier, is a German style of lager, fermented slowly at low temperatures with bottom-fermenting yeast. It gets its color and toasty flavor from dark, toasted malt. While a glass of black lager looks a lot like a glass of stout, the flavor is drier and less fruity, and the mouthfeel a bit lighter than that of a stout. It has definite black coffee vibes –- and if that sounds good to you, a topper of coffee ice cream will make it even better.

If you're looking for another light but flavorful beer option for your summer beer floats, consider a white ale. Also known as witbier, this low-proof Belgian style is made with wheat as well as barley, and is traditionally flavored with coriander and orange peel, which gives it a fruity, summery vibe. 

Plus, if you like the idea of beer floats but cringe at the thought of mucking up a perfectly clear pour with a messy-looking scoop of ice cream, the fact that white ale is naturally cloudy may make it easier to slip in that scoop. For Luke Slater, of The Cask Connoisseur, the perfect partner for a white ale is a scoop of orange ice cream. "This style of beer is often served with an orange wedge to enhance its natural citrusy aroma, so pairing it with an orange flavored ice cream is a no-brainer," he said. 

"The bright, zesty flavors of both the beer and ice cream complement each other beautifully, creating a refreshing, summery treat that's perfect for a warm day." Glanville also enjoys this combo. "I love complementing fruit ice creams with wheat beers, and a white ale is perfect for summer," she said.

In the last few years, desserts with distinctly savory notes have gotten a lot of buzz, with salty ingredients such as miso and even spicy ingredients like chili crisp making their way into ice cream. Creative cooks have started to realize that foods don't need to be naturally sweet to fit into a dessert –- sometimes, the savory notes are just what's needed to lift flavors from predictable to exceptional.

So when thinking about beers for beer floats, we don't have to limit ourselves to beers that are traditionally thought of as sweet. Even beers with distinctly hoppy notes can make a good pairing with ice cream. 

Glanville likes to pair salted caramel ice cream (the quintessential sweet-savory flavor combo) with an amber lager. "The flavors from the ice cream are in perfect harmony with the caramel notes from the malt, while the moderate hop finish helps lift the flavors off the palate and creates a longer finish, creating a truly decadent pairing," she said.

A bright green scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream may be the last flavor you'd expect to see in a beer float — but according to Katherine Benecke of Treadwell Park, it makes a surprisingly complex and flavorful float when paired with Hoegaarden, a Belgian wheat beer. 

"Hoegaarden is one of my go-to choices for at home beer floats," she said. "It's easy to find, delicious, and pairs beautifully with simple choices like vanilla and sorbet." But her favorite pairing, she added, is mint chocolate chip ice cream. "The beer's bright citrus profile enhances the cooling mint, and the notes of coriander subtly amplify the herbaceousness of both profiles, creating complexity and cutting through the cloying sweetness you expect from an ice cream float," she explained. 

In addition, the contrasting textures of the beer and ice cream create an intriguing mouthfeel. "Hoegaarden is wildly effervescent and combined with ice cream, it creates a delicious thick, frothy foam head similar to an egg cream," she said. "The pairing has a really refreshing contrast and a balanced, almost sophisticated flavor that's especially perfect going into warmer weather. Don't knock it until you try it!"

Many foodies find it impossible to identify a favorite food or beer –- ask us on two separate days and you might get two completely different answers. Or the answer on both days will be "it depends." It's normal for cravings to change with the weather and our mood –- we tend to crave lighter things in warm weather and heartier food and drink to fortify us in the cold months.

And while beer floats are great year-round, the winter months –- especially the holiday season –- call for all-out decadence. A beer float combo that fits this bill perfectly is rum raisin ice cream and a Belgian quad. The Christmas pudding vibes of rum raisin ice cream, coupled with the intensity of a sweet, high-proof Belgian quad, make this a seasonally appropriate, yet unusual, holiday dessert. 

"Rum Raisin and a Belgian quad are a marriage of flavors," Glanville said. "The dark fruit character, intense malt flavors, and higher alcohol content of the beer create a lot of depth in this pairing. It's one to savor!"

Floats featuring vibrant, fruity beers and ice cream flavors may be just what you need for your next summer pool party. You can think of these fruity floats as a fun spin on the umbrella-topped tropical cocktails we love to enjoy at resorts. And a perfect base for a summery float is a hefeweizen: a pale, cloudy wheat beer with a distinctive, banana-like aroma.

This flavor profile makes it a great match for fruity ice creams. "Strawberry ice cream with a hefeweizen or a summer seasonal like Samuel Adams' Summer Ale screams summertime," Glanville said. "The big, bright strawberry flavor, with the contrast from the wheat and lemon of a summer beer or the clove and banana of a hefeweizen, makes you want to drink this one on the beach." 

Brian Koch, of Phantom Canyon Brewing Company, likes to play up the banana notes of hefeweizen by pairing it with a creamy banana ice cream. "The natural banana and clove notes of a hefeweizen enhance the creamy sweetness of banana ice cream, creating a tropical, spice-infused treat," he said. To add extra flavor and visual appeal, he recommends adding a sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg on top of the float as a garnish.

Many of us think of butter pecan as an old-fashioned ice cream flavor –- something our parents or grandparents were into, but not a flavor we tend to favor today. But this old favorite is well worth a second look. If you're a fan of pecan pie, you may find the buttery, caramel notes of butter pecan ice cream a happy surprise. And if you experience it atop a beer float, it may well become your new favorite flavor.

The key is choosing the right beer to showcase the ice cream's flavor profile. "Butter pecan ice cream is rich and decadent, so you need a big beer to complement it," Glanville said. 

"I recommend an imperial stout or doppelbock, like our Samuel Adams double bock. These beers are all about malt, so they will match the ice cream's intense richness and complement the sweetness of the pecans." Think of it as a boozy pecan pie in a glass –- and a fun way to surprise your grown-up Thanksgiving guests.

You might not think that mint and beer belong anywhere near each other, but if you choose the right beer and right form of mint, they can form a crave-worthy combo. Glanville likes mint chocolate chip ice cream atop a glass of coffee porter or stout. "[It] sounds heavy, but it's surprisingly light," she said.

Why does this combination work? For one, minty foods taste light and refreshing, even if the mint takes the form of a full-fat ice cream laden with chocolate chips. In addition, the toasty flavors of dark beers such as porters and stouts harmonize surprisingly well with the ice cream. 

"The intense coffee and cocoa flavors from the beer are complemented by the chocolate chips in the ice cream and then contrasted by the cool mint of the ice cream," Glanville said. "Yum!"

Cookies and cream ice cream seems designed to delight little kids. It combines two childhood favorites –- chocolate sandwich cookies and vanilla ice cream –- into an irresistible creamy, crunchy, and super-sweet frozen treat. It's not the most subtle or sophisticated flavor profile, but who cares? Sometimes the simple pleasures are just what we need.

But if you want to add an unexpected grown-up twist to this family favorite, try it in a beer float. Like other close relatives of vanilla ice cream, it plays well with dark beers, but also pairs surprisingly well with lighter ones. "Cookies and cream and rocky road can be paired with many dark beers, but I would enjoy this with a traditional pilsner for the summer," Glanville said. 

"The bready malt notes contrast the creamy flavors here and will wash the richness down, readying you for the next bite." The combination of the sweet, creamy ice cream and light, mildly hoppy lager may not sound like it works, but the lively contrast between these elements makes this float an unexpected delight.

In the winter, craft beer lovers gravitate towards big beers – often high-proof, sweet, and dark brews meant to be sipped rather than quaffed. These can be a great way to win over that friend who insists they hate all beer –- their sweet, often fruity or chocolatey flavor profiles are an easy sell to those turned off by the bitterness of lighter, hoppier beers.

One such big, sweet beer is barleywine. Originally formulated in England, this high-proof beer is malty with toffee-like flavors. This flavor profile makes it a great base for a beer float –- and according to Brian Koch, salted caramel ice cream is the perfect match for it. 

"The intense toffee, caramel and dried fruit notes of a barleywine blend beautifully with the rich sweetness and subtle saltiness of salted caramel ice cream, creating a deeply satisfying and boozy dessert," he said. To make your float even better, Koch suggested adding "a drizzle of warm caramel or a sprinkle of crushed pretzels for extra texture."