What intrigues us almost as much as the seductive taste sensation of this Guinness and ice cream float more intrigued by the art of it all—the patient pour, the perfect melding of bitter and sweet, the ideal glass-to-taste-buds delivery system.
Ready? First, pour slowly. Second, any stout will do, as will other flavors of ice cream, among them coffee, mocha, and chocolate. (Actually, some of us on staff have even done this time and again with amber ale rather than stout, and swooned each time.) Finally, we have it on darn good authority that any approach you can muster—whether a straw, spoon, even a barehanded approach to the glass—will suffice. Let us know how it goes.
Guiness Ice Cream Float FAQs
Stout is a dark, top-fermented beer with a number of variations, including dry stout, oatmeal stout, milk stout, and imperial stout. Soon after its discovery, stout became associated with porter, and become a synonym of dark beer. Stouts that are produced in the U.S. combine the typical dark body and creamy notes with the hoppy bitter flavors characterized by American beers. American stouts are strong, highly roasted, bitter, and hoppy, with high malt flavors that give them the taste of coffee or dark chocolate. Speaking of chocolate, stour is used to great affect in this chocolate stout cake with an amazing brown butter–cream cheese frosting. (Just saying.)
To cut down on foaming and overflow, sloooooowly fill your glasses only half full with beer. Then add the ice cream and the rest of the beer. Patience is a virtue.
Guinness Ice Cream Float
Ingredients
- 1 pint store-bought or homemade vanilla ice cream, softened slightly but not melted
- One (12-ounce) bottle Guinness Stout
Instructions
- Divvy the ice cream between 2 tall, ice-cold, wide-mouthed glasses, soda fountain glasses, or beer mugs.
- Divvy some of the Guinness equally between your 2 glasses, pouring it very slowly over the ice cream. Wait a little for the foam to subside, then pour in the rest of the beer. Stir gently. You can take it from here.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Recipe Testers’ Reviews
Major bang for the buck! This one comes together in mere seconds, and even the most skeptical of guinea pigs—I mean dinner guests—were noisily slurping up whatever stray drops had eluded them. (Definitely serve this with a straw.)
We tried it with both chocolate and vanilla ice cream (homemade), and actually preferred the latter. The chocolate ice cream was a bit of overkill as Guinness already has lovely bitter chocolate and coffee flavors. I won’t be able to keep both ice cream and Guinness in the house at the same time if I want to be ready for bathing suit season. This recipe is dangerous.
Beer floats are one of those things that people either love or hate. I always prefer sweet root beer to beer in my floats, but I do admit that the sweet creaminess of vanilla ice cream does offset the slight bitterness of beer very well. Guinness is a good choice because it’s smooth and creamy on its own. When you’re ready to experiment, try Young’s Double Chocolate Stout or your favorite microbrew stout (stouts are creamy enough for this; porters I find too bitter).
Long-handled teaspoons come in handy when you want to get that perfect bite of ice cream and beer.
To cut down on foaming and overflow, fill your glasses half full with beer, then add in the ice cream (two scoops to each glass). Top it off with more beer.
Guinness is chocolaty, so when you make your float with double-whammy chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, you’ll want to kiss something (my ring comes to mind).
Thanks, Lizzie. Excellent idea!
The original Guinness Float was made 30 plus years ago.
It was the result of enjoying a shot Baileys, Kahlua and Jameson’s dropped into my Guinness. The taste was amazing and I thought make Baileys, Kahlua and Jameson’s Ice cream with brownie chunks and plop it on top of my Guinness!
The result The BIG float, Bailey, (Jameson’s) sIrish whiskey and Guinness ice cream float..
No stirring, no spoon just sip away.
Each sip is different as the ice cream melts away.
That is the original Guinness ice cream float and darn tasty.
An awesome dessert and after dinner drink combo.
Wow, Charlie. Thank you for that. It sounds (and looks) incredible.