Hawaii-made ice creams enhance beers for summer

When the summer heat swelters the way it has over the past couple of weeks, there’s nothing more refreshing than a tall, cold pint of beer. A close runner-up to that pint might be a scoop of ice cream. Lucky for us, beer and ice cream make a harmonious pairing, and with so many ice cream flavors and beer styles to choose from, the combinations are almost endless.

Ice cream-beer floats are nothing new. You may have already seen dark stouts paired up with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream. Just like the affogato, a glorious Italian coffee float, the bitter chocolate and burnt coffee flavors of a stout are perfectly balanced by the sweet, creamy goodness of a vanilla scoop.

My first recommendation starts there — sort of — with a play on the classic pairing of bourbon and stout. Start with Sierra Nevada Stout, a dark, roasty offering loaded with bold notes of dark chocolate, coffee bitterness and a slight smokiness. This stout is available all year.

Instead of the classic vanilla ice cream, try a bourbon- or scotch- flavored ice cream from Butterfly Ice Cream in Salt at Our Kaka‘ako.

Brewers regularly age stouts in used bourbon barrels to soak up the wonderful sweet oak notes, and dropping a scoop of bourbon ice cream into the stout creates a similar flavor. The buttercream base adds a wonderful creaminess to the float, while the toffee and caramel notes of the bourbon balance out the roasted flavors.

Lighter, easy-drinking beers also make great candidates for ice cream pairings. Maui Brewing Co.’s summer seasonal, Mango Hefeweizen, is a classic German wheat beer, with subtle notes of banana, clove and freshly baked bread layered with sweet and slightly acidic mangoes.

The beer’s bright fruit flavors beg to be served with a coconut milk-based ice cream, some version of which you can always find in rotation at Wing Ice Cream Parlor in Chinatown.

A recent selection was a banana-curry leaf-coconut ice cream, Bananafana, a perfect match for the Mango Hefeweizen. Light, fruity and ultrarefreshing, the soft spice notes from the curry leaves add a nice kick to the sweet banana and mango flavors.

Now, you may think I’m crazy for this next suggestion, but trust me: A bright, hoppy IPA and a scoop of fruity sorbetto are amazing together. Try out this type of pairing with Swerve City from Belching Beaver Brewery, a new release that includes a light touch of POG juice.

Hops used here provide not just a strong bitterness, but a huge amount of pineapple, lychee and mango flavors.

Then drop in a sorbetto from Il Gelato Hawaii, which offers an array on its menu. The mango sorbetto is an obvious choice — its sweet, slightly tart mango flavors balance the bitterness in the IPA and reference the mango presence in the brew. You won’t believe how refreshing this combination is until you try it.

Tim Golden, a certified cicerone, shares his obsession with all things craft beer monthly. See his blog, Beer in Hawaii, at beerinhawaii.com.