Butterbeer – not just a figment of J.K. Rowling’s imagination
Anyone who's read the Harry Potter books (it's okay, you can admit to it, you're among friends here...) will probably remember that the beverage-of-choice for trainee wizards is something called "butterbeer". And, like me, you'll probably have assumed that this was an invention on Ms Rowling's part: innocuously kiddie-friendly but vaguely mystical-sounding; a little weird, a little off-the-wall.
A quick Google search would seem to confirm that impression, but it turns out that the author may actually have been inspired by an actual, historical drink that was widely enjoyed in Tudor times.
I know this, because I watched the latest episode of Heston's Feasts (a highly-recommended show in which that mad genius Heston Blumenthal creates weird and utterly wonderful dishes from historical inspiration and serves them up to unsuspecting and almost unilaterally delighted celebrity guests) last night, and he actually made some of the stuff. And apparently it tasted really nice.
So, what we need now is a couple of intrepid, inventive souls (Boak and Bailey, I'm looking at you, for obvious reasons) to check out the programme on Channel 4's Watch Online (it's the Tuesday 17th March Tudor episode and the first segment of the programme), or make note of the helpfully-posted recipe on the Channel 4 Food Blog, then get cracking in the kitchen and report your findings to the beerblogosphere. Is it just a beery variant of egg-nog? Is it little more than mulled beer with added fat content? Does it in fact taste any better than it looks?
We await the results with baited breath...
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Novovirus is an optional ingredient.
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I tried it this weekend, you can find it here - http://pencilandspoon.blogspot.....rbeer.html. It's kinda weird!!
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Excellent stuff, mate! Sorry it turned out to be so bloody awful, but thanks for
warning us offletting us know... :)[permalink for this comment]
Oops. Completely missed this post. Sorry, chaps. We tried mulling beer with eggs in at Christmas, which is in similar territory. We can't bring ourselves to try the butter business, though...
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Sounds like that's probably a good course to steer.
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Butterbeer didn't make sense to me unless I used a stout, and I gave it a go with a milk stout, which made better sense. I had to strain the yolk very very well, and then warmed the stout very slowly, and used sweet butter (not salted). I skipped the spices (not liking winter/white beer at all). It was different, of course, but I (and me boy) enjoyed it. Apparently, butterbeer was the poor farmer's breakfast even into the 19th century.
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