I’m talking about a vanilla float with root beer.
Which vanilla? Vanilla bean? French vanilla? Just “vanilla?” Er what?
Which widely available root beers work best? Which work badly?
My wife and I tried a Coke float recently, which we remember liking as kids, but somehow it just ended up tasting like carbonated water. It was like the coke and the ice cream “cancelled out” somehow. That was using French Vanilla, I think. Could that have been the culprit?
-FrL-
If I’m making a root beer float at home, I only use Breyer’s Vanilla ice cream, with specks of real vanilla bean in it. There might be more expensive vanillas, but none better. Don’t use French Vanilla, and PLEASE don’t use that Dairy Queen/McDonald’s tasteless soft serve stuff.
For root beer, I’ve found A&W and IBC are the two best to use for floats. Both are sweet and creamy with a bit of zip, but neither taste too strongly of exotic herbs and spices. Virgil’s is a delicious high-end root beer that I love, but it isn’t as good for a classic float.
IBC is absolutely the best root-beer for floats. Period.
As for ice-cream, brand isn’t important, but the creamier the better. “Premium” is the key word.
Just as a teeny hijack, my mom always calls a root-beer float a “brown cow.”
Y’all should try chocolate ice cream in your root beer float, you’ll get better foam. 
I was told as a child that it’s a Brown Cow if it’s made with Coke.
I concur with BBVL. Premium ice cream and A&W root beer. Don’t use a microbrewed root beer…too much zip, and you’ll overwhelm the creaminess.
Don’t know your location, but if it’s available try Bluebell’s Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream.
I use A & W (diet, shh… it cancels out the ice cream, right?) and a good vanilla ice cream. A brown cow is cola and vanilla ice cream.
Orange pop and vanilla is nice, too–a Creamsicle!
There’s also the purple cow–grape juice and vanilla ice cream.
Put pineapple sherbet in coconut soda and you get a piña colada.
A&W in a mug with regular vanilla ice cream. Just like we used to get at their shop uptown.
I disagree. Stewarts is just as good as IBC for Root-beer floats. Mug and A&W will make good ones but Stewarts or IBC are required for great ones.
I agree with Big Bad Voodoo Lou that Breyer’s Vanilla ice cream is a very good choice. Welsh Farms Vanilla is a great candidate.
Jim
I always preferred the store brand vanilla - it got “icier” when you added the root beer. By icier I mean little ice crystals. That’s one of the things I loved about black cows.
Yes! I often ate my bowl of ice cream with soda poured on top and I enjoyed the iciness.
Absolutely. Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla + A&W or IBC root beer = mouth orgasm.
Yep. A&W and vanilla ice cream in my 22 oz A&W mug I got a long time ago.
Cold mug. If you really want to do it right.
But that usually takes more forethought, planning, or self control than I have when I think “rootbeer float. yum.”
What does IBC stand for? Does it mater if you buy the premium ice cream for an ice cream float?
Independent Breweries Company.
Coincedentally, A&W and IBC now share the same parent company: Cadbury-Schweppes.
I don’t know if it is the world’s two greatest ingredient’s but Sonic is giving away root beer floats after 8pm here in Austin. Pretty damn good for the price.
What’s “too much zip”? Root beer doesn’t have caffeine, afaik. And I’m learning to like soda that uses cane sugar (or hate soda that doesn’t) that’s the way it was made for a long time. I just had a microwbrewed Root Beer that was the best I’ve had in a long time.
What I think happens is that the chemicals and artificial sweeteners in some of the root beers when mixed with the imitation “ice cream” with all the artificial sweeteners and seaweed derivatives and all that, and it just makes a mess, and leaves a burning taste in the mouth. Blech. Certain things just shouldn’t be $%#$ed with, and a Root Beer Float is one of them.