Buttered beer: Cooking and the recipe

This is a nice easy recipe, with nice, easy to find ingredients. So why has it taken me so long to make? I blame the weather. It has just been too hot to drink creamy, warm beer – definitely cider weather over the last week or two. But now, the rain is back, hooray! I may be the only person who is happy about this, I am not really a fan of hot weather as it means I can’t wear anything wool (at least 70% of my wardrobe is woollen), I get sunburnt the instant I step outside, and the gallons of tea and coffee I need to get my through the day are a lot less appealing (though I have recently rediscovered iced coffee – yum!). Anyway, enough about me, on to the beer recipe:

Take three pintes of Beere, put fiue yolkes of Egges to it, Straine them together, and set it in a pewter pot to the fyre, and put to it halfe a pound of Sugar, one penniworth of Nutmegs beaten, one penniworth of Cloues beaten, and a halfepenniworth of Ginger beaten, and when it is all in, take another pewter pot and brewe them together, and set it to the fire againe, and when it is readie to boyle, take it from the fire, and put a dish of Sweet butter into it, and brewe them together out of one pot into an other

A good huswifes handmaide for the kitchin 1594

I didn’t really want to make 3 pints worth, especially since my husband voiced his dislike for warm, creamy alcohol back when I made the posset, so he wouldn’t be volunteering to help me drink it. I scaled the recipe down to a fifth. This quantity filled a particularly large mug. I’m not sure exactly how much a pennyworth of each of these spices would be, so I went with a small pinch. You can probably just do it according to taste, a small pinch made for a fairly lightly spiced drink, which I thought was nice, but if you like it spicier then by all means add more.

This is such a simple recipe it doesn’t really warrant a step by step description of the cooking with pictures. I will just skip straight to the recipe:

Buttered beer (for 1)

340ml beer (An ale-type beer is probably best. I used Old Speckled Hen)

1 egg yolk

45g sugar

Small pinch nutmeg, cloves, and half the amount of ginger

25g butter

Whisk the egg yolk and then slowly whisk in the beer until it is all incorporated. Put in a saucepan with the sugar and spices, then warm over a medium heat until just simmering. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter, then pour into a mug and serve.

As I expected, this is definitely a drink for a cold and rainy night. I will be reviving this in the winter I think. It’s a lot less heavy than something like posset or egg nog, but it has a similar kind of taste. I really enjoyed it, so I deem this cooking experiment a success! I also can’t go without mentioning that it appealed to the Harry Potter fan in me.

What will be the next food? I am not sure. Any suggestions?

 

UPDATE 10/11/12: I’ve been playing around with this recipe again since the its now definitely the season for it, and I can confirm that this actually tastes much better when made with beers other than Old Speckled Hen – its too bitter and tastes odd with the sugar. Try something darkish but mild, London Pride works well.