I've found that, for the most part, I prefer A&W root beer and either grocery store brand iced cream or the Schwann's vanilla iced cream. As much as I would prefer to like something fancy-pants like Sprecher root beer and Gilles frozen custard. But no- it just works out that A&W is the perfect root beer float root beer. The iced cream thing... I've used all the Breyers and all the fancy brands, but it always works out that the cheap grocery store branded iced cream always works best- the only exception I've found is the Schwann's iced cream. It seems anti-intuitive that the best root beer floats aren't made with the "best" components...