Butterbeer, as Heston Blumenthal points out in his Tudor Feast, is not just Harry Potter’s favourite tipple, it’s also a bona fide Tudor recipe made from ale, sugar, egg yolks, nutmeg and butter. If you’ve always thought that beer is good but could benefit from a few more calories, then this is the drink for you.
Last weekend I spent an eye watering £80 at the dentist on damage control for my sweet tooth. Just two days later I’m whisking sugar into a steaming pot of ale and hoping my fillings don’t melt.
I heated some beer in a pan over a medium heat till it bubbled. Then I took it off the heat, added the egg, sugar and nutmeg mixture, put it back on a low heat and stirred for a couple of minutes until it went the colour of strong tea meets cloudy apple juice. By this point the kitchen smelled of mulled wine which was a more pleasant odour than you’d expect from a pot of warm eggy beer. I whisked in a little butter and the brew was complete.
Rich, caramelly and super-sweet. There’s a reason Heston serves it in tiny glasses. The dentists round Hogwarts must be raking it in.
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.
Comments
Wow! cant wait 2 make and try some!
nice
Sounds fabulous can’t wait to try it. will tell you what I think. thanks for a brilliant program.
Should it be drank warm?
Rory, the 4Food team drank it warm and it slipped down a treat.
I just made it and its declious, although i forgot to turn on the heat so the eggs in it scrambled
what ale did you use? im not sure which one to make it with?!?!?
does anyone know after this is made, can you bottle it for later ?? or does it have to be drank warm right after its made??
Hi Tejas – I used London Pride ale – you could try other ales too.
Thanks, i used IPA it tasted great!
My fellow ale drinking friend and I have just made our very first quart of butterbeer, following the exact instructions above.
My my, I should say that upon first sample of our freshly brewed beverage, we were both pleasently surprised, until we noticed the large quantity of egg ‘bits’ floating round. (We took extreme care to fully whisk the mix)
After a moment or two, we both decided we did not like the taste, due to the intense sweetness and heaviness we felt in our guts.
We used Bishops Finger ale, and we suggest that people reduce the amount of suger when making their own butterbeer.
I would love to add butterscotch to it aswell – probably will melt the teeth straight through my face – but it’d be tasty – definitely trying this in the next few days
i tried it with OSH and didn-t like it much
but i think i went over the top on nutmeg.
oh well
You made my whole day. I can’t wait to make some Butterbeer. Living in southern Wyoming, USA I have a bunch of excellent local micro brewed English Ale’s to use.
eeeeeeeeh how exciting! i am making this at the first opportunity i get
Jus tried this, not bad!
uhhh just downed my 4th pint not feeling too good used Carlton draft (Aussie brew) like eating 10 Mars Bars
To avoid the floating egg bits try ladling a small quantity of the warm beer into the egg mixture before pouring that back into the rest of the beer.
[...] Not to be outdone, fans in the UK are prepping their Potter menus to include pumpkin pasties and cauldron cakes. And here at 4Food, we’re doing our bit to quash the Dark Lord by downing a pint or two of butterbeer. [...]
made a bit with dundee’s honey brown and turned out very tasty
I’m curious… what is the purpose of the egg in this concoction? What does it do? Will it come out all wrong if it isn’t used?
I think the egg acts as an emulsifier binding all the sugary beeriness together. Heston used egg so I did too – I’m not sure what would happen if you left egg out – it would be less creamy – you’d need to experiment!
this looks like a good beverage but i’m not to sure what ale i should use. i was thinking something local to me something from in or arord derbyshire?
Where can I stream this video from please? I would like the recipe (in video format not just written) please
where can i stream this video from please? I know you can get the written recipe but I would like the video as well please. I can’t find it on the original site?
is there a non alahol verson or can i use root beer or ginger ale or cream soda asa beer /ale sub
The lecithin in the egg is an emulsifier, without the egg (which needs to be properly tempered or it will scamble, as others have said) youd wind up with a layer of butterfat floating ontop of your sweetened beer.
Good science skills Cyno01!
t heck – it would be great to see how a non alcoholic version works out – if you give the ginger beer a go, let us know what happens!
[...] my lawd! A butterbeer recipe! I am making this! http://blogs.channel4.com/food/2009/03/17/feasting-on-butterbeer/ [...]
You can purchase non-alcoholic beers — it may work with those. I think if you used ginger beer, it may be too sweet.
Just a thought.
This looks amazing, by the way. Have to try it this week, while it’s nice and chilly outside.
[...] Treat your tastebuds to some butterbeer Permalink||(0) Comments Feed the world… or the office for starters [...]
Thanx! We are trying the recipe on Hallow’s Eve Party. Guatemala City, Central America
ooo, I want to try this!
was not really great i think I messed it up taste very beer like
It was alright, I used Guinness, and you can certainly taste the beer through the sugar. I added some more butter, and a shot of butterscotch schnapps to make it a bit richer. I still think “madame rosmerta’s” butterbeer is better, give it a search on google.
It’s meant to taste beery, it’s butterBEER. The Madame Rosmerta recipe is a soft drink, and nothing to do with traditional butterbeer at all (though it is child friendly, which this one obviously isn’t). Drinks from this era do tend to taste a bit odd to the modern palate, so if you think this is challenging, look up ’sack possett’… Unfortunately all I have in store at the moment is Black Sheep ale, which is lovely, but I think the Fuller’s Honey Dew I finished off last week would have been better.
in theory the butter beer shouldn’t be alcoholic or at least lower in alcohol because you heat it up and it should kill the alcohol in the drink
Wyvern: I was actually referring to an alcoholic recipe called “madame rosmerta’s butterbeer”. It has a much lower alcohol content of course, with half a shot of butterscotch schnapps, and 100mL of ale to a 250mL cup. The rest of it is honey, sprite, egg and butter.
I made two batches, one with Innis and Gunn (not an ale, but it has “hints of toffee, vanilla and oak” which I thought would work well) and one with St. Peter’s English Ale. They both turned out almost exactly the same despite the fact that I used only 40g of sugar with the St. Peter’s Ale.
It’s delicious but it’s a very rich and intense drink and you can’t drink a lot of it at a time. I think if you drank a lot you could easily start to dislike it.
To make sure the egg didn’t scramble I first whisked it well and then added the beer in a bit at a time and whisking again after each addition (adding more and whisking less with each addition).
How many tablespoons would 15 grams of butter be around? I don’t have a scale in my kitchen arsenal.
“madame rosmerta’s butterbeer” isnt really butterbeer it may have butterscotch in it but at the end of the day has no beer and butterBEER needs beer to be butterbeer
Elisha, as I said before, the recipe I followed originally did have a small amount of beer, and a small amount of butterscotch schnapps.
ok i must have missed that part my apologie, but i still think the recipe on this website should be rather low in acohol because its heated.
[...] articles and tons of information about the history of food and photos. I WISH I could try that butter beer [...]
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