Harry Potter Butterbeer

Yakima 728
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Wow... I can't imagine making a beer like that... but then again... who thought of mashing grains to make something sweet.
 
Saw Half-Blood Prince last weekend. Harry, Ron and Hermione ordered butter beer at the bar and it was a very light colored and slightly cloudy drink. It appeared to be very much like a lightly colored wheat beer. Not sure how to get butterscotch that light but there are a lot of smart people here. Someone should be able to figure something out.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
Instead, try fermenting at the upper end of the temperature range of a yeast that leaves high levels of diacetyl after fermentation.
Click to expand...
I'm probably wrong here, but wouldn't you want to ferment at the very low end of the temperature range so that the yeast would give up after awhile? This question is purely for my own curiousity:]
 
Also, butterbeer is served hot in the books. Hot and frothy.

I would envision butter beer as a sweet golden beer or maybe gruit with butterscotch flavoring.

With some quick google-foo and some interpretive thinking, I think this looks awesome:

5 gallon batch (Burton on Trent Water - hard)

4# Maris Otter 2-row
3# Buckwheat honey
gruit (as fresh herb):


crush all herbs with a mortar and pestle
1.0 oz Roman wormwood (infusion)
1.0 oz mugwort (infusion)
1.5 oz mugwort (boil)
1.0 oz tarragon (added to fermenter)
1.0 oz Roman wormwood (added to fermenter)
2.5 oz mugwort (added to fermenter)
​

Kölsch yeast

Process:

Mash the M.O. in 6 qts. water with a single infusion at 156º for an hour. Sparge to a volume of 6.0 gallons of 1.022 wort.

Bring wort to a boil and boil for 20 minutes.

Add 1.5oz. crushed fresh mugwort to the boil and boil for another 15 minutes.

Turn off burner and cool to 180º. Stir in honey. Once honey is dissolved, add 1.0 oz Roman wormwood and 1.0 oz mugwort to the kettle and allow to steep around 170º for 20 minutes.

Cool to 65º.

Transfer to fermenter, add remaining 1.0 oz tarragon, 1.0 oz Roman wormwood, and 2.5 oz mugwort to the fermenter in a hop bag, and pitch a yeast starter.

Ferment cool at around 62º until completion. Rack to secondary and bulk age for at least a month.

Bottle with priming sugar and a few drops of butterscotch flavoring.

Allow to carbonate and condition, then consume hot and maybe mulled while watching or reading Harry Potter.
.......................

I may have to try this, but will likely scale it down to a 3 gallon batch.
 
Funny how different people have different interpretations of things. Anyway, I played around with a recipe last night. Again, "butter" beer to me is referring to the weakness of the beer not the flavor (smooth as butter or weak as a butterball). Given the fact that the kids are drinking it, I think it is far more likely to be a Tafelbier.

Here's my stab at it. I will actually be making this in the next week or so as a summer quaffer......


Tafelbier Butter Beer

5.5 Gallons. Eff: 73%.

2.5 lbs Pilsner Malt
1.0 lbs Wheat Malt
.50 lbs Rye Malt
.50 lbs Cara-Pils

.50 oz Sterling @ 40mins
1.0 oz Coriander Seed @ 5mins
1.0 oz Sweet Orange Peel @ 5mins
Pitch WLP400 Belgian Wit yeast

ABV: 2.15%
IBU's: 11
 
Skip this first bit if you want to get to the meat of the post.
I'm most probably going to get a solid kicking for this, what with my little nublets wading in on a thread where people use recipes rather than kits...
Just kidding, the response in these forums has been excellent even when my questions have been daft. It gives me great pleasure to be able to contribute to a thread with something constructive. (after all, according to the 'I'm a home brewer' video, thats what it's all about, well, that and great beer)

Now on with the real post. This is an actual historical recipe for Butterbeer as the Tudor's in England drank it:
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.

Copied from here:
The Food Blog - Feasting on butterbeer

Basically, the dude made it for a feast themed around eras in British history. I don't rate the chef, but I've been meaning to try this out!

Hope this help any of you 'Potterphiles' out there. Hmmm. That word looks just wrong.

(Read through the thread,couldn't see it, assumed the Beer brewing overlords accross the pond missed it since it was shown on Channel 4 in the UK, so thought I'd share)
 
awesome! I think that's it!

It makes sense - butterbeer in the books didn't have enough alcohol to get the young wizards tipsy, but it got house elves smashed.

I'm going to brew this up next weekend and give it a try. I'll use my pale ale I have on tap.:mug:
 
is there any way to get the flavor of real butter into a beer without using real butter? Not butterscotch but actual butter.
 
Cap'n Jewbeard said:
I like that- and (call me crazy), if you're really going for the "butterbeer" idea, we could try and get it to have some diacetyl in it. (Which gives it a buttery smell, as far as I understand).

Can anyone help me to figure out what gives it that edge?

If we get this recipe down, I might just brew it with you. A small batch, for the HP premiere.
Click to expand...

Just brewed a doppel that had poor temp control and the smell, while buttery, is terrible. I can't imagine it would taste any better, though I didn't steal any from the fermenter.
 
I made the traditional butterbeer as described above by koomber. It was fun for a dessert kind of drink. I could drink my full 500ml, it is really sweet. But it was fun and I would do it again.
 
Crap! I forgot all about this. As luck would have it, I have a pale ale experiment gone mildly wrong on tap. This would be an excellent use for it. Will report back.
 
I just made it up with a pale ale. We were out of table sugar, so I went with light brown. Plus, my egg yolks scrambled immediately.

Either one or both of those things is terminal, or the whole thing is a bad idea. I'll need to go in for a tongue scrape.

Then again, I don't like hot mulled wine at all either.
 
I just made this up with a pumpkin ale. Wow this is good! Needs more sugar imo.

Oh and as for your eggs curdeling, did you temper them in or did you just pour the eggs directly into the hot beer? If you poured them in then they will curdle immediatly but if you temper the eggs in then they wont curdle at all.
 
I don't think I tempered my eggs... I just brought the boiling beer away from the heat, stirred it well and added the eggs slowly while continually stirring. I had no scrambling at all.
 
So - my kids were excited beyond description when I read this forum and told them that I had found an authentic recipe for Butterbeer. Instantly the petitioning began, begging and imploring me to brew this up so that they could vicariously enjoy a Butterbeer by watching my wife and myself drink this by the fire on a cold winter night.

I admit I am a complete sucker when it comes to their begging. Against my better judgment, and with the hopes that a good boil might mellow the beer, I pulled out the only brew I had in the house that was ready to drink (sad state… I know) and began to boil my home brewed IPA… yes... IPA... and a nice hopbomb at that.

I am sure you know where this is going… I added the yolks, sugar, butter etc. as per the instructions and had a beautiful butterscotch looking drink with a good 2 inches of frothy head on it. We sat down in front of the fire... took a sip... and spent the next hour trying to eat/drink anything we could to get the taste out of our mouths.

Alas, the devastation on the kids faces was complete. No matter what I said about hops, IPAs, and promises to try again, I had eight faces looking up at me fully convinced that Butterbeer was indeed a complete fiction.

I will post when I have more fully recovered and feel brave enough to try again.
 
Wow... IPA was a bold choice. It isn't the best drink in the best of circumstances, IPA will not help it any. Something with low bitterness next time. Give some to the kids, it is super low alcohol after boiling and adding the other stuff.
 
Wait... you know you are in the Butterbeer thread right? Where you cook finished beer with eggs, and sugar and spices and stuff and serve it hot and frothed...

Are you talking about adding butterscotch into a beer before fermentation as a regular ingredient? If so, I would maybe search around and see if anyone has posted about it elsewhere. This thread has been about a differnt kind of thing for quite a while...
 
a few of the people were talking about butterscotch extract...i was just throwing out an alternative. ya was thinking you could add it to the wort instead of the extract to add flavor and sugars
 
Skrimpy said:
Some Chardonay wines pick up a buttery flavor from the wooden barrels from conditioning. Maybe if you bought a big wooden barrel to do a secondary in it might do the same. Then again, I don't know if that has to do with the grapes or the alcohol. Ask someone in the wine forum if they know exactly which portion of the wine interacts with the barrel and you may have an easy solution. Ooops! I didn't realize you already tried something. Well if it doesn't work out try the wooden barrel for a secondary. I think it might work.
Click to expand...

The buttery taste in chardonnay is mostly from the oak barrels, you could get the same effect in a beer, but I would not suggest it at all for butterbeer, it's not a sweet buttery taste, it's a woody, oaky astringent buttery taste.
 
Hey guys,

I thought it would be fun to make "butterbeer" for Halloween and was thrilled to find this thread and see that others have tried it. I brewed it last weekend and it's currently in the primary. I mostly used Capn's recipe (but with a few tweaks). Here's what I've cooked up:

4.5 lbs pale two-row
4.5 lbs wheat
1 lb Caramel 40L

Mash for 1 hr @ ~ 154
Estimated O.G.= 1.057; measured O.G. = 1.050

1 oz Crystal (4% AA) - 60 mins
0.5 oz Saaz (4% AA) - 20 mins
13 oz lactose - 15 mins
1 cinnamon stick - 15 mins
5 cloves - 15 mins
1 crushed up nutmeg "nut" - 15 mins
1 tsp Irish moss - 15 mins
0.25 oz Saaz (4% AA) - 5 mins
1 Vodka-soaked vanilla bean in secondary
A few oz of butterscotch Schnapps upon bottling

Estimated IBUs = 14

Scottish Ale Yeast -- fermented warm ~71*F

What do you guys think? I decided to do the butterscotch schnapps instead of extract because people on this thread said that the extract is too potent (plus I have the schnapps on hand). Do you think vanilla and butterscotch will play well together or should I just stick to one or the other?
 
In my experience with pumpkin ales, aroma hops tends to conflict with spices. I think the .25 oz of Saaz at 5mins is unnecessary and will only add off flavors. A quarter ounce isn't much anyways, I would skip it.
 
I don't know how it will come out when it's finished, but a whole nutmeg nut is a lot of nutmeg! I hope it doesn't overpower. Good luck, let us know how it turns out! I think the vanilla and butterscotch should get along quite well (think of butterscotch sauce on vanilla ice cream).
 
If I were to do one, I'd make a very caramely brown and figure out how to get diacetyl in there too. Lower attenuating yeast too.
 
Thanks for the tips. Osborn -- I've already brewed this one up, so the aroma hops are in there. But I think that's a good point and will keep it in mind for next time.

Hegh -- I gave the nutmeg a coarse chop so (hopefully) it wouldn't be too powerful. But you're right in that the nutmeg was the most dominant spice wafting out of the boil. Overall, though, the aroma of spices coming from the boil was subtle -- you had to get in there to really smell it. I think you're right in that the botterscotch and vanilla should play well together -- I'll definitely throw both in. This weekend is racking to secondary and in goes the vanilla. I'll repost the results.
 
Glad I found this thread! This recipe is still in progress and I'm working out all the details, but how is this looking for my Butterbeer? What color do you think it will be? It's my first recipe, constructed from scratch!

Grains:
8lbs Pale Malt
2 lbs Munich Malt
1.5 lbs Crystal Malt 60
1.5 lbs Honey Malt
.5 lbs Aromatic Malt
.5 lbs Victory Malt
.5 lbs Vienna Malt
.25 lbs Special Roast
.25 lbs Flaked Barley

Hops:
1 oz Kent Goldings (60 min)
.5 oz Fuggles (30 min)
.5 oz Kent Goldings (10 min)

Yeast:
Ringwood Yeast

Additions:
2 Cinnamon sticks - 60 min
Cloves – 30 min
Irish moss - 15 min
½ nutmeg, crushed - 10 min
1 cup jaggery - 5 min
2 vodka-soaked vanilla beans - in secondary
Butterscotch extract or schnapps - in secondary and at bottling
1 lb lactose - at bottling
 
ladybrewer - glad to see you're trying to concoct some butterbeer! I've also cooked up a recipe recently posted a few days ago in this thread. If it helps, I'll provide some of the though process that I used in making my recipe:

First, I wanted something that would be an opaue tan/orange color. That's why I went with pale 2-row, wheat, and caramel 40L for the malts. I actually just watched the Half Blood Prince last night and saw this scene in the Three Broomsticks after Hermoine orders "three butterbeers":

0.jpg


I was really happy because the color seemed pretty close!

As far as taste -- I heard that the "butterbeer" they're serving up at the new Harry Potter theme park is like a very nice cream soda. That seemed about right, so I thought vanilla should be a primary flavor (vanilla beans in secondary). Furthermore, I thought a sweet, caramely, butterscotchy taste would be pair nicely with the vanilla. Also, I wanted it to be somewhat low alcohol, perhaps 5% or less (after all...these are kids that are drinking this stuff in the books).

From the recipe you've drafted up, it seems like you'll have a toasty, malty, spicy brew. I would guess you'd come out at a brown color with the grain bill you've proposed. I would question the necessity of the munich, aromatic malt, special roast, and vienna. Mostly because I think these would darken the beer beyond the color you see in the picture above. Also, some of those malts would add (perhaps unnecessary) roasty/toasty flavors. Honey malt could be good -- I thought about adding it myself. Why not also add a little wheat to give it that opaque appearance?

The other additions look pretty good. I decided to stick to butterscotch Schnapps for bottling instead of the extract. Previous posts indicated that the extract is just far too powerful. Also, you could add the lactose during boiling or bottling -- doesn't really matter.

I just racked mine to secondary last weekend. I'll repost upon bottling in a couple weeks. Hope all this rambling was useful...
 
ScottyC - that's very helpful, thanks! I may edit my grain selection slightly. I think I want a little bit of a warm and toasty flavor, but I may have too much at this point. Maybe 2.5 lbs honey and 1 lb munich? Also, how much wheat would I need to add to give it just a little bit of cloudiness?
 
ladybrewer said:
ScottyC - that's very helpful, thanks! I may edit my grain selection slightly. I think I want a little bit of a warm and toasty flavor, but I may have too much at this point. Maybe 2.5 lbs honey and 1 lb munich? Also, how much wheat would I need to add to give it just a little bit of cloudiness?
Click to expand...

2.5 lbs of honey malt will probably be too much. From what I've heard that malt can be overbearing when used above 10% of the grain bill. However, you may want something that's over-the-top sweet w/this beer.

To get a slight haze, I would go with about 20% of the grain bill as wheat. Mine was 45% wheat and it looks just a bit less opaque than the picture.

If you go with a grain bill that looks like this:

6lbs pale 2-row (51%)
2 lbs wheat malt (17%)
1.5 lbs honey malt (13%)
1.5 lbs caramel 60 L (13%)
0.5 lbs victory (4%)
0.25 lbs special roast (2%)

You'd end up at 1.064 O.G. and a color of 16 SRM (which is light to medium brown). You could lighten up the color a bit by cutting back some of the honey and caramel malt -- to perhaps 1 lb. I'd cut out the munich and vienna because I don't think they're going to give you much with those caramel and honey malts in there.

That's just my opinion. I'm still new at formulating my own recipes too, so it's fun to share in the experience. Do what you will -- but post how it turns out!
 
ladybrewer said:
Grains:
8lbs Pale Malt
2 lbs Munich Malt
1.5 lbs Crystal Malt 60
1.5 lbs Honey Malt
.5 lbs Aromatic Malt
.5 lbs Victory Malt
.5 lbs Vienna Malt
.25 lbs Special Roast
.25 lbs Flaked Barley

Hops:
1 oz Kent Goldings (60 min)
.5 oz Fuggles (30 min)
.5 oz Kent Goldings (10 min)

Yeast:
Ringwood Yeast

Additions:
2 Cinnamon sticks - 60 min
Cloves – 30 min
Irish moss - 15 min
½ nutmeg, crushed - 10 min
1 cup jaggery - 5 min
2 vodka-soaked vanilla beans - in secondary
Butterscotch extract or schnapps - in secondary and at bottling
1 lb lactose - at bottling
Click to expand...

15 lbs of grains?! Either you're planning a really heavy, high-alcohol brew, or your efficiency sucks (no offense intended)... And then you're adding sugar (jaggery) during the boil, and schnapps twice? That stuff should knock a big guy on his butt after one pint!

I agree that if you're trying to achieve the color that they show in the movie, you should cut out the darker grains. Stick with 2-row, vienna, and honey, but skip the victory, special roast, aromatic, and munich. You've got too much going on there anyway.

You may also want to eliminate at least half of your hops, since the aroma of hops + butterscotch + vanilla probably won't be particularly tantalizing.

I'd suggest something more like this:

8lbs 2-row
3lbs Vienna
1.5lbs Crystal 40/60

1oz Fuggles @60

Keep the yeast and spices, minus the jaggery. It'll still be pretty high alcohol, unless you've got lower than average (75%) efficiency; if you want to fix that, reduce the vienna to 2lbs and maybe the 2-row to 7 or 7.5lbs.

Good luck!
 

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