I love the “Harry Potter” films. I went to opening weekend of all of them, and midnight screenings of most of them.

“Order of the Phoenix” is my favorite entry in the series, and I wanted to make something with the beloved butter beer to pair with it.

This butter beer ice cream float recipe makes 1 float and 2-3 pints of ice cream. You can decide how many servings that is, and you can easily make more floats if you have more butter beer.

Ice Cream Ingredients
1.5 cups creamy oat milk
1.5 cups vegan caramel creamer
0.5 cups butter beer
1 teaspoon caramel extract
1 teaspoon xanthan gum

Float Ingredients
1 can butter beer
2-3 scoops butter beer ice cream

Instructions
Add the milk, creamer, butter beer, caramel extract and xanthan gum to a blender. If you can’t find caramel extract, you can use vanilla or a (vegan) butter-flavored extract. Caramel creamer can also be replaced with vanilla or plain creamer. I couldn’t find butter beer, but I did find butterscotch root beer.

Pulse until everything is evenly mixed.

What happens next depends on your ice cream maker. If you have a more standard one, you’ll pull your chilled (for 24 hours) bowl out and make the ice cream.

If you have one like mine, you pour the mixture into two or three pints, then freeze them for 24 hours.

After that time, you put each pint into your ice cream maker on the ice cream setting and let it do its magic. (Get my ice cream 101 tips here.)

Put 2-3 scoops of the ice cream in a tall glass and pour the butter beer over the top. (I find this method is less messy than plopping the ice cream into your drink, and it still floats.)

Sip and enjoy with “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!”

The Easy Route
Of course, you can skip making your own ice cream and go for something premade.

Know of a restaurant or ice cream shop that makes vegan butter beer floats? Please share those details in the comments.

The Pairing
“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is my favorite film in this beloved franchise. All of the films speak to the power of friendship, but this one really does that and goes bigger to speak to the power of community.

The fifth film in the franchise, it would have been easy for everyone to phone it in, but the whole cast and crew is firing on all cylinders.

The terrific trio of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley are great in their roles as usual, but I personally love that this film gives a lot of screen time to supporting characters like Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis), Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) and Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith).

Plus, Imelda Staunton is impeccably evil as one of this film’s major villains, Dolores Umbridge, a new professor at Hogwarts.

With her arrival and the growing threat of Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), Harry and a group of his classmates decide to officially band together as the Order of the Phoenix. They teach each other the spells and tricks they’ve learned to survive so everyone is ready to stand together when things get tough.

I’ve become less enchanted with the world of Harry Potter amidst the transphobia of its creator coming to light, but the original series of films still have a nostalgic place in my heart.

If you decide to make a butter beer ice cream float and/or watch “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” let us know! Tag us in your Instagram posts & stories, threads, TikToks and/or tweets: @veg_out_recipes. We’re also on Bluesky as @vegoutrecipes.bsky.social.