Joe & Jasmine of Beer at Joe' s ask us for this month's Session to pontificate on beer cocktails. Considering I am about to head to the great American cocktail city, New Orleans, this may be an apt topic. Having said that, aside from the one Joe pointed out, Black'n'Tan (Guinness floating on Harp or some such combo), I'm not a beer cocktail person. I don't even care for Snakebites (Guinness floating on hard cider). Hell, when drinking spirits, I usually opt for single-malt scotch or bourbon with a splash of water over something with fruity vodka mixed with fruit juice and/or soda and/or bitters.
But there IS one beer concoction I can get into. Beer floats.
The funny thing is, I don't really go for root beer or vanilla ice cream, but gimme a root beer float and I'm in heaven. So since I like stout more than root beer, it only makes sense that a stout float is a thing of beauty. Someone once made me a float with Young's Double Chocolate Stout, a dash of raspberry liqueur, and vanilla bean ice cream, and it was tasty and refreshing. But I'm not in the habit of buying Young's. And while I do have a Beeradise full of various stouts--regular, coffee, imperial...all the way to Founder's Breakfast Stout (double chocolate coffee oatmeal stout) and Mikkeller's Beer Geek Brunch-Weasel (made with the world's most expensive coffee, kopi luwak).
I chose none of those. Instead, I opted to use my homebrewed Latte Stout (made with lactose and coffee). Tasty stuff, but believe me, it's not that carbonated, so it's not like I'm ruining the brew. I didn't have any straight up vanilla ice cream in the freezer, but Half Pint did kindly bring me a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Macadamia Nut, which is half choc/half vanilla, and I just ate all the chocolate-covered Macadamias before floating it.
The result? Not too shabby! I mean, it's no Bobby Flay, but as Half Pint said of it, "What's better than coffee, ice cream, and beer all rolled into one?"
So is it a beer cocktail or really just beer dessert? It's both! Drink up.
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2 comments:
At Stone's bistro, on your birthday they'll hook you up with a float made with all-natural vanilla ice cream and the Smoked Porter. It's delicious. Also, while I was going to school in Boulder, it wasn't uncommon to find someone mixing up the same with Fat Tire, which is surprisingly quite tasty.
Cheers to the beer float!
I'm Chris, by the way - we talked a bit when you visited Stone. Thanks for signing the book!
just awesome - it is as simple as that - thanks for starting things off right - have a great time in New Orleans!
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