The Magical Experience Known as Butterbeer

My sincerest apologies for the irregular postings, however, I do feel that I deserve a bit of a lenience directed my way since it was my birth week. This entire week has been spent at the West End (The Book of Mormon, go see it!) and bars and nightclubs. Now, I’m not sure how appropriate it is for me to write about alcohol, but there was an abundance of it present this past week. I was probably acting like how Hermione did in harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when she got drunk on Butterbeer, there is a possibility I was a bit worse. So, to maintain some sort of dignity, I won’t recall my drunken adventures, I will instead recall the magic that is Butterbeer.

My stupid face as I enjoy Butterbeer.

            Since Butterbeer was not an actual drink until J.K. Rowling invented the slightly (really it’s practically non-existent) alcoholic Wizard drink, it is presumed that she was inspired by the actual Muggle drink Buttered Beer. The earliest recipe for Buttered Beer can be found in The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin, published in 1588. 

The recipe goes as follows::

Take three pintes of Beere, put five yolkes of egges to it, straine tem together, and set it in a pewter put to the fyre, and put to it halfe a pound of sugar, one pennyworth of Nutmegs beaten, one pennyworth of Cloves beaten, and a helfepenniworth of Ginger beaten, and when it is all in, take another pewter pot and brewe them together, and set it to the fyre againe  and when it is readie to boyle, take it from the fyre, and put a dish of sweet butter into it, brewe them together out of one pot into another.

Based solely on this recipe, because frankly I respect the art of brewing too much to desecrate a beer in such a way (lazy), I can confidently report that the Butterbeer served at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour- The Making of Harry Potter as well as the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida (went there for my 21^st birthday) does not taste like Buttered Beere. The workers in both London and Orlando poured the Butterbeer from a giant keg-like barrel thing through a tap. You can watch as this golden, bubbly drink fills up your overly priced souvenir mug, which is then topped off with a thick cream that has the hint of butterscotch. Rowling has described the taste of Butterbeer as “a little bit less- sickly butterscotch.”

Butterbeer in the overpriced mugs. 

            On the journey from Zone 9 back to Zone 2, my fellow Hawaiʻi friends and I tried to figure out what Butterbeer could truly be. A couple with either an American or Canadian accent told us that the drink was just cream soda with butterscotch flavored cream. This information was a damaging blow to the magical essence of the Wizarding World’s Butterbeer. However, it was still an experience to have, again. It was highly overpriced, but worth the little amount of magic that we felt while drinking it.