[HPforGrownups] Re: OOP - It's Butterbeer time!

[Jesta Hijinx]

No: HPFGUIDX 66990

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E
> >
> > ButterBEER must have beer as an ingredient! It must also have an
>low
> > alcohol content for canon to make sense, maybe 2%.
> >
> > In medieval times BUTTERED ALE was a popular drink. Ale (beer
>brewed
> > without any hops) was heated together with with butter, cinnamon,
>and
> > sugar. I think this is basically what Butterbeer is.
>
>That's possible, but I don't think butterbeer *has* to be alcoholic
>(however mildly) just because it's got "beer" in its name. Root beer,
>birch beer and ginger beer are all non-alcoholic.  Also, I always
>thought it was non-alcoholic, but that house-elves just had weird
>chemistry so that they got drunk on it. That kind of thing has
>happened in other sci-fi/fantasy-type stories. That's just my
>thought, though. It could just be very mildly alcoholic, also.
>
I agree that butterbeer is more of the root beer/ginger beer/birch beer 
group - 'beer' here being used to mean a brew of some ingredients; none of 
them are alcoholic.  I suspect that the only close relative from medieval 
times might be a beverage called "small beer" in a recipe book by Kenelm 
Digbie - I don't remember the exact ingredients, but the alcohol level is 
tiny - as low or lower than shandy as previously described - and its main 
purpose is to make the drink very slightly carbonated - not even remotely 
fizzy, just having a bit of a bead to it.  (I'll try to find the exact 
recipe if anyone's interested, but it's OT - I've had it once and read about 
it numerous times.)

Someone who posted before the poster who wrote about "buttered ale" (and I 
honestly have never seen a recipe like that, and I do some medieval cookerie 
and research - all of the ingredients were available, but I just haven't 
seen any mention of it per se - is it maybe more Renaissance?) was saying 
"Isn't butterbeer a hot beverage?"  NO - when they're getting it at The 
Three Broomsticks, the mention of "foamy mugs" is because there it's 
available *draft* on tap - like A&W root beer is so much better at the 
fountain.  But Remus Lupin has bottles of it, when they all go into the Hogs 
Head, they get 25 dusty bottles of butterbeer for the class...it's not being 
served hot.

I think it's just that the house elves have a different biochemistry than 
humans that makes Winky get drunk on the stuff - although the Brits have 
shandy, I gather  you'd have to drink a whole lot of it to get tiddly.  I 
can't imagine JKR having kids tottering around Hogsmeade drinking anything 
noticeably alcoholic - she generally has the kids in the WW doing things 
that, if magical, would not have illegal cognates in our world - at least, 
not the good kids - Dudley's gang is getting up to some questionable 
activities now.

>Whatever it is in the book, however, I would imagine that if some
>company or other starts producing it as a product tie-in, it would
>most likely be non-alcoholic so the kiddies would be able to drink
>it.  After all, kids make up a large percentage of the Harry Potter
>audience, so IMO they shouldn't be left out, and the manufacturer
>would probably make more money by making it available to the widest
>possible audience. I imagine it as a kind of butterscotch flavored
>soda, as has been suggested before. Grown-ups who want their
>butterbeer with a "kick" to it could just add a shot of their
>favorite liquor.
>
>Michelle (beldasnoop)
>
Yep - I think the commercially produced butterbeer we're likely to get will 
be somewhere on the cream soda/root beer continuum.

Felinia

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail