This is pretty simple, but does require an ice cream maker – or a flippin’ lot of stirring by hand. There isn’t much of a trick to it, other than to follow the directions for your ice cream maker – usually you need to freeze the bowl overnight. I have the cheap Cuisinart one (~$40), which if you like ice cream, pays for itself after only a few uses.
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
6-10oz imperial stout (I used Founders)
3/4 cup sugar
Combine the stout, sugar, vanilla and almond extract and allow to simmer gently for about 10 minutes. The concept is to burn-off most of the alcohol. Founders imperial stout is about 10% ABV, so you want to see the mixture reduce some, but try not to boil-off the water. Studies have shown that a concentration of about 1% alcohol enhances the flavor of many dishes (think vodka-sauce etc) so a little bit is ok, but too much and your ice cream will taste like a boozy-slushy. Which sounds pretty good, now that I’ve typed it out.
Ideally you would let the mix cool pretty good before putting it into a frozen bowl, but I was in a rush and since I was only making a half batch, I knew it would mix up just fine. Combine all the beer mix, milk and cream and allow to churn for about 20 minutes. At the end of the mixing process I added some dark chocolate and crushed nuts, just for some texture.