Actual Butterbeer - pretend you're Harry Potter!

[Edmund Blackadder]

I was watching Heston Blumenthal (that guy who makes eggs and bacon flavoured Ice cream - freak) and he is currently doing a show updating old feast treats and he found that in the time of Henry VIII they had Butterbeer.

Well I found the recipe and its pretty straight forward, so here you go - if anyone actually makes this, let me know what you think as I plan to try it out at the weekend.



PS the people who tasted it thought it was really nice!

Recipe for butterbeer

Ingredients
500ml ale
Yolks from 2 medium eggs, whisked
60g sugar
Dash of nutmeg
15g unsalted butter

Method: How to make butterbeer
Pour the ale into a warm pan on a medium heat. When the beer begins to come to the boil take off the heat and add the whisked egg yolks, sugar and nutmeg.

Return the pot to a low heat (to stop the eggs from scrambling) and stir for 2 minutes. Take off the heat and whisk in the butter. Decant into your finest flagon and chug.

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

My visions of butterbeer have just been crashed....I always imagined it would be more like buttermilk 🙁

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

My visions of butterbeer have just been crashed....I always imagined it would be more like buttermilk 🙁

Well its creamy in look.

It does make me think that JK is all for underage drinking!
Do you really want teenagers as young as 12 with the ability to drink this concoction while holding a wand

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

It does make me think that JK is all for underage drinking!
Do you really want teenagers as young as 12 with the ability to drink this concoction while holding a wand

It also makes me doubt all the adult wizards in Potter land. Didn't Lupin offer 13-year-old Harry a bottle of butterbeer? And on school grounds!

 

[Silum]

I heard about this show! I guess its already started, im gonna have to check it out. It is a series right? on different medieval foods

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

It also makes me doubt all the adult wizards in Potter land. Didn't Lupin offer 13-year-old Harry a bottle of butterbeer? And on school grounds!

Well they 'legally' bought it at the Hogs Head and I'm pretty sure that the Weasleys allowed their kids to drink it - BUT I'm not sure that JK knew it was this!

I heard about this show! I guess its already started, im gonna have to check it out. It is a series right? on different medieval foods

Yes, I think its in about week 2, maybe 3.
It will be on 4OD but to be honest, from an hours show, this was the only thing worth taking from it!

 

[Silum]

Well they 'legally' bought it at the Hogs Head and I'm pretty sure that the Weasleys allowed their kids to drink it - BUT I'm not sure that JK knew it was this!!

Surely even boiling the ale even for a little while would remove most of its alcohol content.

....Though this comment belongs more in an agree post... apparently, ive karma'd you too much recently...how that happens Al, ill never know 😛

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

Surely even boiling the ale even for a little while would remove most of its alcohol content.

....Though this comment belongs more in an agree post... apparently, ive karma'd you too much recently...how that happens Al, ill never know 😛

Actually, to remove the alcohol it has to evaporate and the fact that this is taken off heat as soon as it boils, suggests that most of the alcoholic content will remain.

Add to that, that this is a recipe from Henry VIII time and that kind of adds credence that this is an alcoholic drink.


Me either, mind you it has been a few days since I've seen the old Silum 'disagree' karma!
Whats up with that?

 

[itsxpaperdoll]

Add to that, that this is a recipe from Henry VIII time and that kind of adds credence that this is an alcoholic drink.

Well, in those days, they didn't have a method to clean out water (because it was polluted, only with horse/sheep/human erm, manure instead of chemicals) so the only way to clean it was by making beer out of it. because the fermenting (or whatever it's called) would more or less kill all the microscopic evil in it. Now, the beer or ale or whatever it resembled, they made out of it, did contain a lot less alcohol, and adults and children alike drank it as much as they pleased.


Of course, alcohol is and always will be alcohol. so it puts all the great discoveries, travels and works of art that were made back in the day in a whole new perspective...

/history nerd



Cangel! Maybe we should try and make this once, can't be too difficult 😀

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

Well, in those days, they didn't have a method to clean out water (because it was polluted, only with horse/sheep/human erm, manure instead of chemicals) so the only way to clean it was by making beer out of it. because the fermenting (or whatever it's called) would more or less kill all the microscopic evil in it. Now, the beer or ale or whatever it resembled, they made out of it, did contain a lot less alcohol, and adults and children alike drank it as much as they pleased.


Of course, alcohol is and always will be alcohol. so it puts all the great discoveries, travels and works of art that were made back in the day in a whole new perspective...

/history nerd



Cangel! Maybe we should try and make this once, can't be too difficult 😀

I know about the water, however this was an extravagance.

Everything about this is indulgence, which would include stronger ales than the usual stuff.

We're talking about a time when a king (Henry) put on a banquet that in todays money would be £5m.

This wasn't run o' the mill stuff.

 

[Cohen]

Well they 'legally' bought it at the Hogs Head and I'm pretty sure that the Weasleys allowed their kids to drink it - BUT I'm not sure that JK knew it was this!

Well, I always thought "beer"="alcohol". But I never cared because I was that age when I got into it, so..

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

Well, I always thought "beer"="alcohol". But I never cared because I was that age when I got into it, so..

BUT you're not a book aimed at people as young as preteens.

I took Butterbeer in the same vein as Shandy in a can, which is made with 'beer' or those Cider Lollies.

 

[DrusillaRox]

*looks up* Sorry, was distracted. BACON FLAVOURED ICE-CREAM? What the hell is in that

Now, You'd think the 13 year olds would at least drinks ordinary beer! I mean BUTTER BEER?




....freaks

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

*looks up* Sorry, was distracted. BACON FLAVOURED ICE-CREAM? What the hell is in that

Its Ice Cream that is bacon flavoured...kinda answers your question.

 

[Professor Walsh]

Silum:

ok history nerd, your theory on water retrival seems to be a little off, if indeed we were stupid enough to let animals continually contaminate our water supply...we wouldnt exist today

You're joking now, right?

 

[itsxpaperdoll]

Silum agrees: ok history nerd, your theory on water retrival seems to be a little off, if indeed we were stupid enough to let animals continually contaminate our water supply...we wouldnt exist today

Ofcourse they protected their wells and stuff. However, the problem was that if you were living in an area were there were no natural wells (ie, clean water) your have to use water from a stream or river. And as you probably can image, it's near impossible to protect the entire river from animals taking a crap.

Also, it's not my theory, it's loads of people's theory, and I didn't come up with it.

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

Firstly - you guys think the kids drinking butterbeer was bad? What about the Firewhiskey?!?

Secondly - it's definitely suggested that Butterbeer was alcoholic, if very weak. Winky the House Elf was a right little drunkard off the stuff.

"Well, it's not strong, that stuff." Harry said.
But Dobby shook his head. "This strong for a house-elf, sir." he said.

Thirdly - When Jo made it up (which she did, even if it is actually a real thing), she imagined it as tasting like hot butterscotch, but less sickly. I think I'd like this version better though.

Ok. [/HPGEEKDOM]

Carry on.

---------- Post added at 10:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:53 AM ----------

Oh, hang on, [HPGEEKDOM] again. I forgot a bit. If you do the maths, you can buy a bottle of Butterbeer for around 60p. Provided you're, er, y'know, in Hogsmede. And it's all real.

 

[Big Damn Hero]

Re. it being alcoholic.

Ethanol evaporates at 80 deg C, or thereabouts. So in the time it takes for the magical concoction to go from 80 - 100 (which is a fair little while, although not AGES) you will lose some of it's alcoholic content. Although we're probably talking no more than 20% of what's in there.

Maybe wizards have a more european style to their drinking (little amounts from when they're young) than we do in england (50 cans of wife-beater [stella] in a park for your 14th b'day). 😛

 

[Silum]

Ofcourse they protected their wells and stuff. However, the problem was that if you were living in an area were there were no natural wells (ie, clean water) your have to use water from a stream or river. And as you probably can image, it's near impossible to protect the entire river from animals taking a crap.

Also, it's not my theory, it's loads of people's theory, and I didn't come up with it.

Btw, I wasn't so much as disagreeing with your post as disagreeing with this point:

so the only way to clean it was by making beer out of it.

Im sure this myth is around (in the same way that making curry was only used by indians to make use of bad meat, another myth) but its just not true. It just another one of those funny stories people tell, mainly because it involves beer.

But the idea that because we dont protect our water supply (ok, things happen) that we are forced to create beer out of it to drink is a bit silly. Those poor 0-12 years olds who had to drink poo water or get drunk as the alternative.

...In reality, people made beer because they like beer. They drank water when they were thirsty. And they boiled water when it was dirty.

 

[sibby]

I must try some time! Sounds cool. And Harry Potter love <3