Harry Potter Butterbeer

[Cap'n Jewbeard]

Well, even though it's clear as a bell after primary, I put it in secondary for a bit. (I haven't gassed up my C02 tank yet; this beer is going to have pride of place as First Kegged Beer!).

I put 3/4 tbsp of the butterscotch extract into the bottling bucket; while it had a powerful smell, it seemed to dissipate somewhat when it was mixed into the roughly 4, 4.5 gallons of beer. Now, I had a taste of the beer (flat n' warm), and it seemed the 'scotch was playing nicely with the other herbs and spices.

As for killing the head? Don't know yet. Can only hope it doesn't.

 

[SpamDog]

Can't wait to hear how this all turns out.. I am definaly interested in trying a batch.. please post your thoughts and what you would/will do next time you make the batch!

SpamDog

 

[Trean72]

So I'm wating to hear how it turned out. The book is out this Saturday, will you be drinking butter beer as you read? I have to know!!!!

 

[Cregar]

Here is a definition from answer.com:

Butterbeer:
Butterbeer is a warm frothy drink that makes the drinker feel warm and cozy.

**WHOOPS Didn't realize how long the thread was.. guess I was a little late

 

[Skrimpy]

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.

 

[Cap'n Jewbeard]

OK, here's the skinny on the butterbeer:

Overall: Not bad, needs refinement. Wish there was another book so I could plan another batch around it.

Head: Good, lacey, and thick- but I've kegged it, so your experience may vary.

Color: Lovely brown/garnet thing happening (I'll try to snap a photo later)

Aroma: Fascinating- sweet, spicy, herbal... and butterscotch-y.

Taste: The herbs/spices are blended well, but they are VERY overpowered by the butterscotch extract. I put about a teaspoon in a 4.5-ish gallon batch... this was too much. I'd use half that next time. A little hop bitterness (the aromas are mostly wiped out by the butterscotch, sadly; I used nice Saaz and similar) keeps it from being cloying, but the lactose definitely makes it a "specialty" brew.

Alcohol: Warm, but not hot. About 5%, and mixed in nicely with the sweetness and the butterscotch warmth.

Summary: Good, but too much extract. I've never worked with it before; they weren't kidding when they said to use it sparingly. yeesh! I'll drink it up, though, no worries...

 

[worxman02]

Cool. Thanks for taking one for the team . I subscribed to this thread and i plan on attempting this in the near future. I just hope that the head will come out as well if I bottle it as opposed to kegging.

 

[Cap'n Jewbeard]

It almost surely should, especially if you use a smaller amount of butterscotch extract.

 

[Aclay]

How do you think this recipe would do as a gruit? Instead of adding the hops just upping the spices and turning it into a "butterscotch root beer?" This is quite an interesting concept. Someone earlier had posted about other fictional brews. Too which I have a response.

The Brown Ale from Sherlock Holms would be just a traditional English Brown Ale.
Romulen Ale is a high alchohol drink and it's not really "beer," it's better made in a mixed drink with Everclear, blue Curaico (sp) and soda water.

Yeah, that's right. I'm a dork! Wanna make something of it? :rockin:

I think I might have to try the brew from this thread.

 

[HeatherD]

I just picked up a book on making your own root beer and sodas and realized that butterbeer must be made in a similar fashion. I never realized that the biggest difference between (old fashioned) root beer and real beer was fermenting time! I think it's funny that you all are trying to brew this like a real beer, with hops and stuff! It seems to me like it should only be allowed to ferment for a couple of days, just like you would do a homemade root beer or ginger ale. It's pretty clear from the books that its alcohol content is very low. If I ever come up with a recipe for brewing butterbeer like root beer I'll post it here D (First I must practice!)

 

[onelegout]

As has previously been suggested - I imagine butterbeer being a kind of cream-soda flavoured stout.. but white....

 

[android]

anyone got a photo of the final product?

 

[BrewBrain]

Alright, I just finished the last book two nights ago and thought it safe to finally bone up on butterbeer. Unbelievably, I never did hear any spoilers prior to finishing. A couple fake ones, but no real ones.

Did anybody come up with a low alcohol tasty potion? I haven't seen any of the movies - to they show the drink on screen?

 

[nealf]

Here is a quick google search I did. I am not sure if this is butterbeer that they are supposed to be drinking in this scene; however, if it is it seems to be a rather pale beer:

http://www.mugglenet.com/images/hbplist/Ch14/14weasley.jpg

 

[jmorriso]

why not make a home made cream soda brew and add butterscotch schnapps to it before you carb it?

 

[Tsuyako]

Ask <groan> starbucks or another coffee place. They have butterscotch coffee flavoring. Make sure it don't have preservitives in it though.

Also try baking supply places.

Whole foods has it, go up to the Allegro coffee bar. No preservaties in the coffee flavoring.

*Edit-Just at Whole Foods this morning. Coffee bar does not have butterscotch flavoring but the guy said they did sell butterscotch extract...then again he did make my whole milk/no foam latte with non-fat milk and foam)

 

[Aubie Stout]

Saw the movie this weekend with the kids. Liked the fact that the kids in the movie were drinking "butter beer". Funny. I figured it had to be something like the table beer the Belgians drink or a Pale Mild like the British drink. Don't believe there was anything "butter" flavored about it.......

 

[Vuarra]

[Romulan] Ale is a high alchohol drink and it's not really "beer," it's better made in a mixed drink with Everclear, blue Curaico (sp) and soda water.

Just to add to the dorkiness factor... Romulan ale, as per Vonda McIntyre's novelization of Star Trek II, is not ethanol, but some other depressant... Kirk thinks that he remembers why he never developed at taste for it -- the great high never quite compensates for the depression the next day.

God only knows what they were drinking on set, but I highly doubt it was Everclear or blue Curaçao.

That felt good... now to see what the wife thinks of the idea of brewing butterbeer.

 

[Revvy]

Just to add to the dorkiness factor... Romulan ale, as per Vonda McIntyre's novelization of Star Trek II, is not ethanol, but some other depressant... Kirk thinks that he remembers why he never developed at taste for it -- the great high never quite compensates for the depression the next day.

God only knows what they were drinking on set, but I highly doubt it was Everclear or blue Curaçao.

That felt good... now to see what the wife thinks of the idea of brewing butterbeer.

If you have to go and bring up a drink from Star Trek, then you have to check out this thread, as long as you have a strong stomach.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/klingon-blood-ale-61383/

 

[davesrose]

For Star Trek dorkiness, I wonder how Altair water tastes....or if it's safe to brew with

OK....wizards like Harry Potter always made me think "Butterbeer" would be some made up prissy soda. First google hit turned up this:

MuggleNet | Madam Rosmerta's Magical Recipes | Butterbeer

wikipedia does mention that there's a historical "butterbeer" that actually did include beer

Harry Potter universe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll take a real beer thank you

 

[Vuarra]

Wow... I can't imagine making a beer like that... but then again... who thought of mashing grains to make something sweet.

 

[Skrimpy]

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.

 

[size]

Instead, try fermenting at the upper end of the temperature range of a yeast that leaves high levels of diacetyl after fermentation.

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:]

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

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.

 

[Aubie Stout]

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

 

[koomber]

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)

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

That. is. awesome.

 

[IXVolt]

wow. I'd hit that.

Not so sure the egg part sounds that enticing though.

 

[BrewBrain]

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.

 

[IXVolt]

Any results to be had on the authentic Butterbeer?