Shakes from Crown Candy Kitchen. The customary concrete stop at Ted Drewes. Ice cream at Serendipity. Think you’ve completed the soda fountain circuit this summer? Not unless you’ve tried the beer floats at Lumière Place’s Stadium Sports Bar and Grill.
Each of Stadium’s four 25-ounce beer floats is filled to the brim with draught beer, a shot of liquor, two scoops of ice cream, a mound of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. The Stanley Cup is a combination of Guinness Irish Dry Stout with a choice of raspberry or vanilla vodka, plus chocolate syrup and the rest of the sweet fixings. The dark float is a bit of a heavy hitter, but the coffee and cocoa notes of this drinkable beer complement the vanilla-flavored booze and the sweet creaminess of the toppings. Another float option for lovers of dark ale is the World Series, which calls for the malty chocolate goodness of New Belgium 1554 Enlightened Black Ale.
The Triple Crown, our favorite, is a winning mix of Chimay Triple and peach schnapps. This float is so fragrant and fruity – the golden-colored Belgian Trappist beer lending the taste of Muscat grape and raisins while the schnapps brings the summer stone fruit to the nose and palate – that it’s easy to slurp down the first 8 ounces within seconds.
The Vince Lombardi pairs a refreshing Bavarian wheat beer, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, with raspberry-flavored vodka. It’s the lightest-tasting of the foursome and probably the only one we could possibly polish off without help. Then again, we never hit the soda fountain circuit alone. Sipping on sweet treats like these is always more fun when two straws stick out of the cold, frosty mug, don’t ya think?
This article appears in Aug 1-31, 2011.