Butterbeer

What Harry Potter fan doesn't wanna sit around sipping on some butter beer. Out of all the food stuff J.K. Rowling came up with, not much has captured our interest more than butter beer.  The problem is that I don't like any of the recipes for it I found online (and I've tried just about all of them).  For one thing they tend to be too sweet and they are all assembled drinks (I feel like butter beer should be something you can pour straight out of the bottle and into a nice mug). And the one from Harry Potter would is gross.  So I've started on my mission to develop the perfect butter beer recipe; it's been my white whale and I think I've finally harpooned it.  Since wizards seem to prefer doing things the old fashion way (writing with quills, lighting rooms with candles, riding horse drawn carriages up to Hogwarts (albeit winged dragon-like horses you can only see if you've seen death), I decided to make the soda the old fashion way; soda actually started out as really weak beer brewed to circumvent alcohol taxes. I based this recipe around a milk stout, using lactose to give it a creamy texture. Now I'm not saying this is an quick recipe, and you probably will need to go to some specially stores to get some of the ingredients, but it's worth it.  It's very important to keep everything you're using very clean to prevent wild yeast from infecting your brew and give it off flavors.  You might want to even go as far as rinsing out whatever bowls and utensils you use with boiling water.

6 1/2 cups distilled water
5 oz brown sugar
2 oz lactose
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp butterscotch extract
1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 tsp irish ale yeast (WLP004)

1 tsp light corn syrup.

You'll also need a plastic half liter soda bottle thoroughly cleaned with the label removed, preferably replaced with some cute butter beer label (there are a surprisingly large amount of good ones on google image search)

1. In a medium sauce pan add the brown sugar and 2 cups of the water.  Bring to a boil (this is important because it will kill any microbes and will break the sucrose into glucose and fructose which is easier for the yeast to eat). turn off the heat, and whisk in the cream of tartar and lactose.
2. Move the brown sugar syrup to metal bowl inside a larger bowl filled with ice to cool the syrup as quickly as possible.
3. Once cooled to about 60 to 70 degrees, add the butterscotch and vanilla extracts along with 1/2 tsp of the yeast (it'll come in a test tube, shake it up to get the yeast in suspension, and open it carefully over the sink like a soda, it'll be carbonated). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a cool (65degrees-ish), dark place for 24 hours.
4. Ladle the butter beer into bottle, careful not to disturb the sediment at the bottom. Add in the last 1/4 tsp of yeast and the corn syrup to the bottle, tightly seal and shake to combine.  Place in the same cool dark place for 2-4 more days or until carbonated to your liking then move to the fridge.  Serve chilled and enjoy (while reading quidditch through the ages, pretending that letter did come when you were 10).