Stout Float
The Stout Float is a scoop of vanilla ice cream lowered into a tall glass of Irish stout, with an optional drizzle of Irish cream over the top. It is a house serve rather than a canon cocktail: no bar claims it and no date attaches to it. It works the way an affogato works. Something cold and sweet goes into something dark and bitter, and each corrects the other before either goes too far. The ice cream melts outward into the beer, the beer seeps inward through the scoop, and the last third of the glass is the best of it. Stout is the reason it holds together rather than collapsing into novelty. A dry Irish stout brings roast malt and a clean bitter finish, which sit naturally beside vanilla, and its low carbonation keeps the meeting civil where a livelier beer would foam over the rim. Serve it as pudding on the seventeenth of March, spoon first.
Glassware: Collins Glass
Garnish:
Ingredients
250ml
Roast malt, a clean bitter finish and low carbonation, which is what keeps the meeting with ice cream civil. A livelier beer foams over the rim the moment the scoop goes in.
1 scoop
Plain and properly frozen. A soft scoop dissolves on contact and muddies the glass in the first minute; a hard one rides half-proud and melts outward at the edges.
15ml
Optional. The drizzle pushes the glass fully into pudding, and without it the stout keeps a little more of its dignity. Both readings are correct.
Instructions
Pour the stout into a tall glass with room below the rim.
Let the head settle for about thirty seconds.
Lower a scoop of vanilla ice cream into the glass rather than dropping it.
Drizzle the Irish cream over the top, if using.
Serve with a long spoon.
Expert Tip
Let the head settle before the ice cream goes in. Drop a scoop into a freshly poured stout and it takes the foam over the rim with it, which is messy and costs you an inch of beer. Thirty seconds is usually enough. Use properly frozen plain vanilla. A soft scoop dissolves on contact and muddies the glass in the first minute, where a hard one rides half-proud of the beer and melts outward at the edges, which is the whole visual point. Leave room below the rim when you pour. A quarter-litre of stout in a pint glass gives the scoop somewhere to go and the melt somewhere to expand into, and it is the difference between a dessert and a spill.
Flavour Profile
The Idea
The Stout Float is a house serve rather than a recovered classic. No bar claims it, no date attaches to it, and it makes no pretence otherwise.
The design logic is the affogato's, moved from espresso to stout: something cold and sweet lowered into something dark and bitter, each correcting the other, and the meeting point better than either half alone. Ice cream by itself is one-note sweet. A quarter-litre of stout by itself is a beer. Together they produce something neither one manages, which is a dessert you drink.
The Stout
Guinness has brewed at St James's Gate in Dublin since 1759 and defines the dry Irish stout style: roast malt, a clean bitter finish, low carbonation and a dense creamy head. Every one of those properties matters here.
The roast reads as coffee and dark chocolate against vanilla, which is a pairing pastry kitchens reach for deliberately. The restrained carbonation keeps the float from foaming over when the scoop goes in, which a lager or an ale would not. And the bitterness is what stops a quarter-litre of beer plus ice cream collapsing into sweetness, which is the failure mode of every other float ever made.
Any quality Irish stout in the same dry style does the same job.
The Float
Lower the scoop in rather than dropping it, over a settled head, and you get an actual float: the ice cream riding half-proud of the beer while the edges melt outward in cream-coloured threads.
Temperature is the variable. Ice cream straight from a domestic freezer holds its shape for several minutes; ice cream that has been standing on the counter dissolves on contact and gives you a murky brown glass with no float in it at all.
The optional fifteen millilitres of Irish cream is the final flourish. With it the drink is fully pudding. Without it the stout keeps a little more of its dignity.
What It Keeps Company With
Stout has a documented talent for unlikely company. The Black Velvet has layered it over champagne since 1861, and stout with oysters is one of the great traditional pairings, the salinity and the roast working against each other in the same way this drink's bitterness works against sugar.
It also has an American cousin in the root beer float, which is the version most guests will recognise on sight. The Irish reading swaps root beer's candied spice for roast bitterness, and the result is considerably more adult than the silhouette suggests. Serve it to the sceptic last, because the glass converts more reliably than the description does.
How to Serve It
Pour the stout into a tall glass with room below the rim, let the head settle, add the scoop, drizzle the Irish cream if you are using it, and hand it over with a long spoon.
It is an end-of-evening serve for the seventeenth of March, after the Irish Coffee crowd is satisfied and the table has moved past dinner. Spoon first while the scoop holds its shape, then drink what is left, which by that point is a roast-and-vanilla cream drink.
The Spirit
Irish CreamIrish whiskey blended with fresh cream and stabilised so the two stay together, invented in 1974. It created a category that had not existed, and it is dense enough to be the layer everything else in a shot is stacked against.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which stout should I use?
A dry Irish stout. Guinness defines the style, and its low carbonation and dense head suit the float particularly well; any quality Irish stout with roast character and a clean bitter finish does the same job.
Is the Irish cream essential?
No. Stout and ice cream make a complete drink on their own. The fifteen millilitre drizzle adds richness and pushes the float further into pudding territory, and leaving it out keeps the stout's bitterness more prominent.
How should I serve and drink it?
Spoon first, then drink. The early stage is dessert, with the ice cream still holding its shape; as it melts the glass becomes a roast-and-vanilla cream drink. A tall glass with room below the rim saves the overflow.
Master the Techniques
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Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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