In the books, is butterbeer alcoholic? I’m quite sure firewhiskey is…but am confused on butterbeer
Presumably not, as it seems to be freely served to under 18 kids.
I’ve always rather wondered what butterbeer might taste like. Frankly, it sounds quite disgusting. Even if there were no actual beeriness to the flavor, I can’t really imagine a butter flavored drink being good.
I figured it was a butterscotch type flavor. The beer part of the name would be the same as root beer or ginger beer.
No, it’s clearly alcoholic.
Dobby: Winky is drinking butterbeer, sir.
Harry: Butterbeer? That stuff’s not strong.
Dobby: Tis strong to an elf, sir.
That implies it’s got SOME alcoholic content…even if not very much.
IIRC, in England there are two different drinking ages, one for strong drinks and another (lower) age for weak drinks, so teenagers can drink beer. And besides, we’re not dealing with the laws of Muggle England anyway, but the laws of the wizarding community, and we know that the age of majority for wizards is lower than for Muggles (17 vs. 18), so the drinking ages might well be different, too.
As for direct evidence, we do know that house-elves can get intoxicated on butterbeer, to which Ron comments “that stuff’s not very strong”. Now, we don’t know about house-elf physiology, and maybe sugar is intoxicating to them or something, but Ron saying that it’s not very strong seems to imply that it has at least some strength to it.
Which doesn’t mean much since the Wizarding World isn’t likely to adhere to Muggle laws.
There are several references in the books that suggest it’s ever so slightly alcoholic - House Elves can get drunk on it, and Harry wonders about Ron and Hermione might do under its influence at one point. (ISTR seeing it compared to a ‘small beer’ somewhere, but I can’t find where.)
I always thought it was something like ginger beer, with an alcohol content similar to the drink lemon, lime and bitters.
It’s possible that the “stength” of butterbeer might be caffeine instead of alcohol. On the other hand, IIRC there are some references to butterbeer being “warming”, which suggests alcohol. (Unless it’s served heated, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.)
Home-brewed root beer and ginger beer does often have a little alcohol (actually I think some ginger beers can be as potent as regular beer), so there’s real-world precedent for soda that isn’t entirely “soft”. But I don’t think there’s ever any reference to any human, not even kids of 10 or 11, ever getting sick from butterbeer, so it can’t have much alcohol.
There certainly were not two different drinking ages in the England I grew up in. Teenagers can drink beer because (1) the age of majority is 18, and (2) younger teens will often successfully flout the law (but that happens in America too).
I think it may be the case that certain extremely weak alcoholic beverages, notably some types of ginger beer and lemonade shandy, can legally be served to people of any age, but they are so weak that even a child would have to drink an implausible amount to get any sort of buzz on. (Though maybe a house elf would be different.)
I feel like I would get sick from it without any alcohol at all.
Like the quiditch scoring system, butterbeer is not one of Ms Rowling’s best thought-out inventions.
It’s alcoholic. House elves can get drunk off of it.
You can’t get drunk from caffeine. You can from alcohol.
On the contrary, if humans can’t get drunk from it, it does not contain alcohol. What substances might act as as intoxicants for house elves, I really cannot say.
The point is that house elves have the resistance of infants. The alcohol level is so low that the amount of actual liquid it would take for a human to consume and become intoxicated is unpractical. If you can find a reference stating otherwise I’ll happily change my tune. But “drunk” typically refers to alcohol intoxication. The house elves, when drunk on the stuff, act like caricatures of drunk humans. Finally, it’s called butterbeer. All that points to it containing alcohol. Why have alcohol in it at all if it’s in such low quantities? Well, it’s not the only thing in the HP universe that doesn’t make sense.
Yes, it’s alcoholic in the books. That’s the 2 second response.
Well, there’s a clue. ‘[L]ike cream soda. It was somewhat thick, and it was really sweet, and then it got salty as you swallowed it, like butterscotch.’ And: ‘[S]tart with a good cream soda." The hard part, he said, would be the topping: “It tastes like a Werther’s caramel candy but the foam had the consistency of a dairy or latte type of foam. It’s pretty dense; it floats on top.”’
I think we have a few homebrewers here, and others who concoct drinks. How 'bout we (and by ‘we’, I mean ‘they’) come up with a home-brewed soda, based on cream soda and with butterscotch flavouring, that is mildly alcoholic and can be served warm. And has a head on it. 
The house elves don’t know “Soberous Totalis”.
Universal is charging $10 for the privilege of quaffing that particular cream soda. You do get a keepsake glass.
I’m quite sure butterbeer is simply culturally English (if not Northern European, generally.). It’s just a glass of bitters, a Shandy, or Cider with dinner… An ale at the Pub with your parents. And believe it or not there was a time linguistically when we didn’t have to specify “Hard” or “Alcoholic” Cider… it simply was. And without this great modern prissish pruditude, adjectival softening. Cider is hard and I hate we have to argue the PC version.
The same reason non-alcoholic beer still has alcohol in it (and kids that pound the stuff will get a little buzzed from it). It’s just part of the process of making it.
I knew that the Disney version at the park didn’t have alcohol, and that’s actually what led to the question.
Although after watching Half Blood Prince, right before Katie Bell get’s cursed, the kids all order a butterbeer…and are seen walking along and Hermionie is stumbling a bit and has her arms around the boys in the typical “drunk girl with friends” way.