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If you have heard of Harry Potter, you probably know which drink we are talking about, a tasty butterbeer that lets you live out some of your greatest movie fantasies.
Some time ago, TIME magazine published a video showing step by step how to make Harry Potter’s butterbeer at home, with no special skills, magic wand, snake eyes or toad legs required.
The version made popular by Universal’s The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which opened on June 18, 2010 in Orlando, is alcohol-free and is reminiscent of Cream Soda, a popular American carbonated soft drink with a hint of vanilla. It is a lighter butterbeer suitable for the whole family, and J. K. Rowling herself tasted it and gave it her approval (Bangor Daily News, 2010).
How to Make Butterbeer?
To make this famous recipe, you can use any beer with a slightly roasted character (Brown Ale, Porter, Schwarzbier, etc.), with or without alcohol, depending on the occasion and what you have on hand.
Nutritional Information
Each serving of this recipe provides about 310 kcal, 34 g of carbohydrates (25 g of sugars), 11 g of fat, 4 g of protein, 0 g of fiber and about 200 mg of cholesterol, calculated with USDA tables for a 5% beer and unsalted butter, without subtracting the alcohol that evaporates during heating.
With salted butter, the sodium rises from about 20 mg to about 65 mg per serving.
Harry Potter Butterbeer Recipe
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes
Calories: 310 kcal
Servings: 4 people
Ingredients
- 100 g of brown sugar
- 30 g of butter
- 5 cloves
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 liter of roasty beer
- ½ teaspoon of ginger
- ½ teaspoon of nutmeg
Preparation
- Start by heating the beer with the cloves, ginger and nutmeg, setting aside at least 200 ml to top with foam at the end. While the beer heats up, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until creamy.
- Once the beer is hot enough (it does not need to boil), take it off the heat and add the egg and sugar mixture.
- Stir until the mixture is smooth. Then heat it again for 3 to 4 minutes over very low heat so the eggs do not poach, stirring constantly.
- Add the butter, keep stirring until it has melted completely and pour through a strainer to remove the cloves.
- Froth the beer you set aside at the start with a milk frother, pour the butterbeer into a large glass to taste and top it with the fresh foam.
The Original “Butter Ale”
In medieval Europe there were already recipes for drinks made with butter, such as “butter ale”, a mix of beer, butter, eggs and spices.
The recipe included in A Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin, a cookbook printed in London by Richard Jones in 1594, describes the method like this.
Take three pints of beer, put five egg yolks to it, strain them together and set it in a pewter pot on the fire. Add half a pound of sugar, a pennyworth of beaten nutmeg, a pennyworth of beaten cloves and a halfpennyworth of beaten ginger; when it is all in, take another pewter pot and mix them, and set it on the fire again. When it is ready to boil, take it off the fire and put in a dish of sweet butter, mixing it from one pot to the other.
This is a tradition that goes back to a time when people looked for new ways to enrich drinks with extra calories and nutrients, especially in winter.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What is Harry Potter butterbeer?
It is a drink invented by J. K. Rowling that first appears in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (1999), where Hogwarts students drink it in Hogsmeade. Rowling told Bon Appétit in 2002 that she imagined it tasting something like a less sickly butterscotch.
2. Does butterbeer contain alcohol?
The one sold at Universal parks is alcohol-free. The recipe in this article does contain alcohol because it uses a roasty beer, although you can make it with a non-alcoholic beer of the same style so the whole family can enjoy it.
3. Where can you drink official butterbeer?
At The Wizarding World of Harry Potter areas in Universal parks. The first one opened on June 18, 2010 in Orlando and offered it from the start in two versions, regular and frozen, both alcohol-free.
4. What beer is best for making butterbeer?
A roasty beer with low bitterness, such as a Brown Ale, a Porter or a Schwarzbier, because its caramel and roasted notes go well with the brown sugar and butter. Very hoppy beers clash with the sweetness of the mix.
5. Where does the idea of mixing beer and butter come from?
From 16th century English “buttered beer”. One of its recipes appears in “A Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin”, printed in London in 1594, and it combines beer, egg yolks, sugar, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and butter, the same ingredients used in the recipe in this article.
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