Butterbeer Recipe 2011

Two years ago I published a short essay on the alcoholic magical beverages in the Harry Potter books, with my versions on how to make them, called "Firewhisky Recipe! Butterbeer Recipe!" It's since been one of the most viewed posts on this blog, and for good reason. They are delicious.

In anticipation of the final movie coming out this week, one of the top articles on The Huffington Post was "Butterbeer: How the Harry Potter Beverage Was Made Real." According to Jim Hill: "Based on surveys that UOR employees have done, the greatest Guest Satisfier in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter [the theme park in Florida], that piece-of-the-magic that people most wish that they could take home and share with friends and family... is a beverage. Butterbeer, to be precise."

He also said the Wizarding World folks "labored for nearly three years to come up with a workable real-world recipe for this magical, mythical brew." Three years, really? Our recipe came to my friend Jenny Ruth in a dream. The sugary, highly-processed creation they serve at the theme park, of course, has a top-secret recipe. So you have to apparate to Florida to drink butterbeer? Do you know what else has a secret recipe? Coca-cola. And Ira Glass, like Hermione would have done, figured that one out with a little research.

"So -- that said -- what is actually known about this amber ale?," you query. Well, there are two distinct phases to the preparation / pouring of a glass of Butterbeer. First the bottom layer -- a slightly thickened mixture which tastes like a combination of butterscotch, cream soda and shortbread cookies -- is poured into the bottom of the glass. Then the Butterbeer's head -- which is this lighter, fluffier, less sweet version of marshmallow fluff -- is carefully placed on top of the brown brew that has previously been poured into this glass.

I fully sympathize with a Harry Potter-themed resort wanting to sell a version of the magical drinks, one that can be legally sold to kids and help them have an inspiring experience. (The "magic" in that secret recipe sounds like it's sugar and artificial flavoring, which would have the magical effects of a sugar-high and weight gain.) A close reading of Rowling's books will reveal that Butterbeer is not only magical but alcoholic. It's clearly the latter, because it has certain mild but well-known effects on the student characters after they consume it, such as the lowering of inhibitions. As I wrote in my essay two years ago:

In Harry Potter, after Harry has been attacked by a dementor, Professor Lupin gives him chocolate to restore him, not exactly advanced magic. All thru-out the books, Rowling understands that there are simpler magics & emotional forces more powerful than some of her sillier spells. What exactly is a potion but a brewed beverage with transformative properties? Alternately, when Ron is recovering from a strong potion, Professor Slughorn gives him a shot of mead which turns out to be laced with a powerful poison - not exactly the positive metaphor for drinking that parents fear. And there's of course two much more potent beverages in the Half-Blood Prince book - love potion & felix felicis (liquid luck). None of this fictional magic is far-fetched from what any teenager or adult has experienced from well-timed libations.

At the time, I was righteously outraged by online recipes I found, not because they were non-alcoholic but because they were disgusting, using melted butter & butterscotch syrup. I'll reprint now the simple alcoholic itwaslost version, which I recommend smuggling into the cinema this weekend:

-a dark ale or black ale (I recommend New Belgium's 1554 black ale.)

-a dash of butterscotch schnapps on top.

It's easy & inexpensive to make, available outside of Florida, it's sweet & butterscotchy but not sugary, and it might loosen you up and give you the courage to ask the witch you like to the ball. Cheers!

BEER - solo guitar version

This original song “BEER” - originally a four-part shape-note folk hymn composed for the Western Harmony, set to the poem "The Little Vagabond" from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience - is here sung for the series of tubes in a solo guitar version.



Please “like” our new band The Manna Tease on facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Manna-Tease/175912775782478
We’ll be doing a version of BEER sooner or later.

Here’s the lyrics & the guitar chords I used today:

BEER
(Lyrics by William Blake)

gmin

C gmin Bb F gmin
Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
C Eb cmin7 F
But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm:
C gmin Bb F gmin
Besides I can tell where I am use'd well,
C Eb cmin7 F gmin
Such usage in heaven will never do well.

But if at the Church they would give us some Ale.
And a pleasant fire, our souls to regale:
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day:
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

And God like a father rejoicing to see.
His children as pleasant and happy as he:
Would have no more quarrel with devil or barrel
But kiss him & give him both drink and apparel.

The Swell Season for Arnophilia

I got a phone call midday Tuesday (in Berkeley, CA) from an 'unknown' number, & it was Sam Amidon calling from Oxford, England, looking for recommendations for a pub to sit & read in for a while! I navigated him to the Turf Tavern, which is hidden up a windy alley & has a beautiful beer garden & rare ales on tap. Here's a video he just posted of him singing at the Royal Festival Hall (in Bangladesh I think).

The Proud Beggar

ever wonder what the hell I am thinking about? ever wonder what the hell James Joyce was thinking about? ever wonder what Helene Cixous was thinking about James Joyce? ever wonder what it means to be human? ever wonder of you're the only person in the universe who thinks the whole getting married and having kids thing is a little suspect? ever wonder what word pisses me off more than any other word?......NOW IS YOUR TIME TO FIND OUT.

(tip: I think this one reads best fullscreen in "book" viewing mode)




The Proud Beggar

it's almost time for an ALMUS! (It was a lost Bulgarian beer commercial)

Christopher Hitchens: My so far uncancerous throat is not at all the only organ with which I've blasphemed.

I'm not a huge fan of Mr Hitchens (who has just announced he's dying of cancer), but sometimes he makes a well-phrased atheistical point, in this case a response to the accusation that his cancer was somehow linked to his non-religiosity:

Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: it’s an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia. Devout persons have died young and in pain. Bertrand Russell and Voltaire, by contrast, remained spry until the end, as many psychopathic criminals and tyrants have also done. These visitations, then, seem awfully random. While my so far uncancerous throat, let me rush to assure my Christian correspondent above, is not at all the only organ with which I have blasphemed …And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it’s hello darkness my old friend. In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be “me.” (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)

I also liked his take on the Jefferson Bible (thanks to Chuck & Josh of the Stuff You Should Know Podcast for quoting this):

[...]The Jefferson Bible [...] was what he found was left if he took a pair of scissors and cut out everything in the Bible that could not by any intelligent person be believed. Makes for a slender, convenient read; I recommend it.

Sports: Quilldipides running from Athens to Marathon this weekend

Bulgarious correspondent Mr Quill is running in Greece this weekend. In his own words:

Around 9AM Athens time, be sure to focus your thoughts on the number 4150. I will be dying somewhere between Athens and Marathon, contemplating the meaning of everything and asking the question that broke The General. W H Y. Why? Say it in your best McGoohan impression.

The following are my goals.

Primary Goals:

1. Finish. Do not walk at any point.

2. Eat a steak and have a beer afterward.

Secondary Goals:

1. Finish in under 4 hours.

2. Perform some kind of whimsical dance after finishing.

And after this Sunday, I will no longer be obligated to train and my evenings will open up for new activities. I plan on writing and studying. During my training, I could never measure the distance I was running by any means, so I described my average run as a 'Boar's Head' and measured thusly. I believe the Marathon is approximately 4 boar's heads. Now I will apply the boar's head to other things. I've decided that 1011 words is the writing equivalent of a boar's head and so I will try to treat it similarly, writing a boar's head 4 or 5 days a week. Keep your eyes open.

Thank you for all of your well wishin' on the runnin'. It will motivate me and my pride. And I'll let you know how it goes.

In Re: We Didn't Ride These Things

Hello for a final time from the Balkans. It's getting too hot to move here, & so we're coming home.

In response to Mr Brains' inquiries to our use of bulgarous public transit, we traveled most everywhere by bus or foot. It's funny, yesterday, right when you were posting that question about the Ruse train, we were in Ruse attempting to get on a train to Romania, told "there is problem", & so had to go back overto the bus station. (Easier said than done, because the scam-artist taxi drivers are like a nagging combination of vulture & mosquito.) The bus was just a van with only us in it & a hungover chainsmoking driver who looked like Chigurgh from "No Country for Old Men" & kept chewing us out for strange reasons (putting the seat down, bread crumbs, &c.)

The electric buses in Bucharest, pictured in Brains' other posts, are easy to jump on & there seems to be no way to pay for your tickets (in comparison to Bulgaria, where little old ladies on the bus come & collect money.) We had a beer last night in a caffe over one of the temporarily dug-up streets in old town, where creaky boardwalks transport pedestrians over the nasty pits all thru this part of town, a popular neighborhood for stray dog fornication. It's lovely, actually, because there's no cars, just good-looking Bucureşteans promenading & carousing on the boardwalks; every city should be so fortunate to have it's old town all dug up.

Our last week was spent more-or-less around Varna, an old resort on the Black Sea, & various Eastern sites where Mr Quill's friends live. We met the famous Anton. I guess more impressions from our travels will trickle down, & some of the films will appear here. I recommend spending some time with Grainne's travelogue, "Beautiful to Forget, More Beautiful Still to Be Forgotten." (I like if you put those Scribd books into fullscreen & put on the book-flipping option.)

BEER - Shaped-Noted Score & Demo Solo-Quartet Recording

While Jesus is harrowing hell, I thought today might be an appropriate time to make a short demo recording of my shape-note tune "BEER". Thursday was International Transubstantiation Day (also known as Holy Thursday), where around the world, millions who consider themselves devoted Christians are drinking grape juice instead of mimosas. Download this demo mp3 here.


Happy Easter & Passover, & this song is set to a poem from William Blake's Song of Innocence & of Experience:

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm:
Besides I can tell where I am use'd well,
Such usage in heaven will never do well.

But if at the Church they would give us some Ale.
And a pleasant fire, our souls to regale:
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day:
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

And God like a father rejoicing to see.
His children as pleasant and happy as he:
Would have no more quarrel with devil or barrel
But kiss him & give him both drink and apparel.

Remember, earlier I posted a solo version of this song, more free & lonesome if that's the way you like your beer.

BEER - solo wiggly voice version

There is a four-part shape-note version of this song, written for the Western Harmony, but this afternoon I opened the windows & sang a lonesome solo version using my wiggly voice.

The text is William Blake's poem "The Little Vagabond" from Songs of Innocence & of Experience (1794).

Download this mp3 here. I'll post the four-part shape-note score with a different recording some day.

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm:
Besides I can tell where I am use'd well,
Such usage in heaven will never do well.

But if at the Church they would give us some Ale.
And a pleasant fire, our souls to regale:
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day:
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

And God like a father rejoicing to see.
His children as pleasant and happy as he:
Would have no more quarrel with devil or barrel
But kiss him & give him both drink and apparel.

Videos: World Beard & Mustache Championships; I love Jesus but I drink a little.

Ms Jessica Beer of Portland (pictured to the left conducting a choir of unbearded angels), today on the facebooks, called our attention to two videos. The first is from the 2003 World Beard & Mustache Championships in Carson City, Nevada.

Look! One of the men on the runway is the very mustache I posted below! In response to my "25 Things" note (which I'll probably post here tomorrow), she writes "There are only 107 days left until the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Do you have your ticket to Anchorage yet? http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/index.html."
The Department of Beards & February Month of the Mustache are bearing so much fruit!

The second video is a fine moment in daytime talkshow history:

Recipe: Inauguration Luncheon at Ashby Ave, Berkeley, California

Did you hear Barbara Feinstein, as she was commencing the post-Inauguration fancy luncheon? She said the most-viewed webpage at the Inauguration site was the one with the recipes for the lunch. So, in full anticipation that this will be my most popular blog post ever, I'm publishing the recipe for my post-Inauguration-live-weblogging lunch-in.

Obama Nachos
-Preheat oven to 350°
-Pour a bag of tortilla chips onto a pizza tray. (I used Casa Sanchez Thick & Crispy Gruesos, a bay area favorite brand.)
-Sprinkle with shredded Tillamook cheddar cheese.
-Black beans
-Bake until the cheese is melted
-Add salsa (Casa Chicas RedGreen salsa, delicious from Zacatecas, Mexico), & guacamole, creme, whatever you want, to your taste.

I suggest pairing this with a dark beer, the earlier in the afternoon the better, I recommend San Francisco's rich Anchor Porter ("because porter is the new black president, bitch" as the Tracy Jordon slogan goes). Merry New Administration!

Inaugural Libebloving

1:44pm I'm confused, they just said the parade was "finally getting started..." Here we go! Alive Ablogging!


I nominate this as the best picture ever on itwaslost.

I'm fond of the dark & gloomy empty inauguration capitol just below here. I'm come into my own as a photoshopper.

1:57pm Obama & Michelle are officially going into a BUBBLE to watch the parade.

2:05pm Yes! They're playing Aloha Oi, Hawai'i finally in the white house.
2:06pm We've already heard one out-of-tune "Celebrate good times", is this like America's most popular patriotic song or something??

Grainne! All of our comments from the below Alack Alas post just disappeared? What happened? Do you have them saved? I just re-entered mine, do you have yours?

2:20pm Besides some of it getting deleted, I see the libebloving has slowed down. I guess, how exactly do you comment on the thirteenth straight marching band playing "from the shores of montezuma"?

I'm going to the Berkeley Bowl to get supplies for inauguration day nachos. & more senator beer.

Beer Review: Red Stripe Jamaican Lager

"Obama's campaign has been extraordinary and titillating for me and my family."

-- Jimmy Carter, feeling titillated, but still refusing to endorse.

(1/29/2008)

If you spend money on CafePress.com, you should definitely buy Ms Marlier's shirt, above. But I just noticed that people have uploaded more than 12,100 designs for Barack Obama on CafePress, all available for purchase. They're stylish, inspiring - "Anthropologists for Obama" is necessary apparel. A recent surge of 1970s-feel Obama imagery - including the slightly distorted photo of him on the front page of the New York Times a few days ago - is giving this thing a legendary sheen.

http://www.cafepress.com/buy/barack+obama

Sorry if fans of this blog are weary already of our small itwaslost.org Obama campaign. We'll return to rhyming poetry & reviewing fine literature in short order.

Shaheen, the world's nicest bartender at the Starry Plough Public House on Shattuck, tells me there's nothing wrong with craving lagers in the wintertime - even if conventional wisdom is that ales are typical for colder weather. It occurred to me in the bathtub just now, that for the first time since drinking age, a non-Californian beer has risen to the top of my favorite-beers-of-the-moment. This rainy February in Berkeley, nothing tastes better than a red stripe. That sweet aftertaste.... a Boont doesn't taste right just now.