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Floats rise to the top

Floats rise to the top

When a foot-weary trio from the North American Pizza and Ice Cream Show grabbed a table at Barley’s Brewing Company in Columbus, Ohio, recently, the goal was to procure a few craft brews. But then one of them spied a root beer float—on the beer list.

“That’s what I want,” says Ann Reichle, owner of Angelina’s Pizza in North Olmsted, Ohio. “I haven’t had one in forever.”

The choice earned her grins and rolling eyes from the hop heads at the table, but she defended her $7 selection for nostalgic reasons.

“I loved those growing up, and you don’t see them often at restaurants. It’s cool.”

She’s clearly not the only one who thinks so, as the float is emerging as a potentially hot dessert trend. They are bubbling onto menus at high-end restaurant and laid-back bistros and being made with innovative new ingredients. Brewpubs serve adult versions blending rich stouts and fruity Belgian brews with ice cream, while such restaurants as Manhattan’s Café at Country blend soda with house-made sherbet, popcorn and caramel.

Redhook Ale Brewery in Woodinville, Wash., serves a double porter float that was a collaborative effort between him and the brewery’s marketing manager.

“I’d made Guinness ice cream in culinary school, so I knew beer and ice cream tasted good together,” says chef Ian Dow, who charges $5.50 for the float.

The treat is so large and full-bodied it’s commonly shared by couples.

“We give them one pint of porter and two good-size scoops of ice cream. The ice cream also has a caramel swirl and goes well with the bitterness of the porter.”

David Yudkin, owner of four Hot Lips Pizza stores in Portland, Ore., found that upper-end restaurant buyers of his all-natural Hot Lips Soda were using the fruit flavors for fancy floats. The soda is brewed from excess stone fruit and berries brought to Yudkin from the fields of local farmers. While he wasn’t sure what his customers charged for their floats, he believes the quality of the sodas allow them to charge a premium.

“A float like that is kind of in now, especially for people who know our brand,” Yudkin said in a 2007 interview.

In a follow-up conversation, he says his soda was temporarily off the market due to supply shortages, but that he expects bottling to resume soon.

“People think it’s kind of cool because it’s locally made, and it tastes very different from a mass-produced soda. I can imagine it’s really good in a float.”

For many adult Americans like Reichle, floats hearken back to a time when desserts were simpler. The legendary Black Cow, made of vanilla ice cream and root beer, is credited by many as the country’s first ice cream float. Multiple sources date its invention to 1893, the same year root beer first was sold in bottles.

Mark Estee, co-owner and chef at Moody’s Bistro in Truckee, Calif., says he deliberately placed his floats on the dessert menu to be a bit playful. Amid a list containing sophisticated items like olive oil lemon cake, a cheese plate and several elegant ports and sherries, he included the $7 root beer float.

“We really tried to invoke some childhood memories with it,” says Estee, whose dessert menu also includes s’mores. “Visually it’s like it was when I was a kid, too: You get this beautiful vanilla bean ice cream…root beer and we give them the whole bottle and serve it all in an old-fashioned ice cream glass with two straws and two spoons.”

But like many simple pleasures, creative chefs and bartenders can’t seem to leave well enough alone.

Tinkering is a good thing, according to Naomi Josepher, co-owner of The Chocolate Room, a dessert cafe in Brooklyn, N.Y. The cafe serves five floats, all of which feature its house-made ice cream and high-end chocolate. When Brooklyn Brewery makes its annual fall batch of Black Chocolate Stout, The Chocolate Room throws a party and sells chocolate stout floats for $9 each.

“Our guests know the quality of our products, and they’re willing to pay a little more for them,” says Josepher about the arguably high ticket. On the opposite end of the price spectrum is an intriguing and even-better-selling hot chocolate float costing $5.50. Served in a large coffee cup, thick hot chocolate is poured over a scoop of house-made vanilla, coffee, mint chip or banana ice cream.

“We found out one of our chefs was eating these for a year before she said anything. When I tasted it, I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? This is awesome!’”

Younger customers lean toward flavors like the Snow mint chocolate float—Snow mint soda, chocolate ice cream and whipped cream, $7—and the Izze Soda Float, which is vanilla ice cream blended with clementine, lemon, blackberry or grapefruit soda, $7.

“We do those because not everyone loves chocolate,” Josepher says. “We’re also big on natural sodas because they’re not too sweet and they don’t have any artificial additives.”

Like The Chocolate Room, Eastern Standard in Boston also serves beer with ice cream. The $7 floats, served during baseball season, blend either porter or blond ale with vanilla ice cream and typically are sold to adult revelers heading to or from nearby Fenway Park.

“We sold quite a few last year, probably because they were perfect for that kind of crowd: kind of playful,” says assistant bar manager Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli. Whether the beer floats return when the Sox come back from spring training is up to the new pastry chef, he says. “We have a pretty extensive dessert menu already, and he makes those decisions. I hope so, though. People like them.”

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