I just read the label on a common store-bought butter, made and sold here in the Philippines. Contents included butterfat first, and milk powder. Even that doesn’t change it enough that I can tell the difference. (Magnolia brand, a subsidiary of San Miguel.)
shrug There’s quite a range of flavors of various butters. It’s pretty simple to taste the difference between a cultured and non-cultured butter (and not everyone prefers cultured butter.) Unless your tastebuds are completely fried, I bet you’d be able to taste the difference, too.
I could have written the exact same thing as you! We were grossly disappointed with Kerrygold, a little splurge that didn’t work out.
I also did not care for Kerrygold.
This thread got started at just the right time!
Grrr! and Elemenopy, you’ve both praised Amish butter. I just saw ads for it in my local supermarket circulars for the first time (and I check them weekly) but, at $10 for a 2-pound (minimum) roll, it better be pretty awesome because I don’t want to end up pitching 30 ounces of it in the trash.
So what’s so special/different/better about the Amish butter in comparison to the name-brands (Tillamook, Kerrygold, Land O Lakes) or the generics that are packaged at the same plants? I mean, I’ve had some good dreams and bad dreams, so can you use some more flavor-related terms?
–G?
I concur with the idea that the big divide is sweet cream vs. cultured, and that the cultured butters have a pretty wide variation.
I’m partial to Normandy butter, which is a sort of cultured butter produced in the Normandy region of France. Isigny Ste Mer and Celles sur Belle are two brands that I’ve enjoyed.
As for sweet cream butter, it seems to me that the most important thing is freshness, followed by butterfat percentage. A local-ish brand called Braum’s is probably the best going around here- it’s from an Oklahoma dairy outfit that has their own weird hamburger joint/dairy stores within 300 miles of their dairy, which puts the southernmost outlet just south of DFW.
Bacon butter. Yes it’s a thing.
It’s really hard to explain, but I’d say Amish butter is almost the opposite of cultured butters (of which I also enjoy some). It’s just very pure and creamy (milky) tasting, and seems extraordinarily fresh. It’s usually very hard when chilled, too, whatever that means in terms of butterfat quantity. I don’t have any right now, or I’d try to give you some wine-tasting quality blather. 
Anyway, to give you an analogy from the cheese world:
Amish butter: fresh burrata or buffalo mozzarella
Grocery butter: Muenster cheese
Cultured butter (Chimay, etc): aged Cheddar
Hope that helps!
First garlic butter and now bacon butter, my mouth is watering. 
Not to derail the thread, but what is up with butter prices? I’ve looked online for answers and most of them direct you to shortages/price increases in the UK and EU.
I also saw an article stating that it’s because of a poor corn crop in the US (aren’t we always a net corn exporter?). And then another website suggests it’s because of how much we export.
I find this to be a confusing mix. All I know is now that I work at a grocery store, I am keenly aware that pretty much the price of anything with cream in it has jumped. But milk is still pretty cheap at my Kroger ($1.99/gal right now). What gives?
If you think Land O Lakes or generics taste like Tillamook or Kerrygold then there’s not much I (we?) can do for you. To me they’re as different as Budweiser & Guinness. Or to keep it dairy related, skim milk & heavy cream.
IME, Amish butter is not much different from Plugra or other heavy butterfat partly- or wholly-cultured butters. Nor is it much more expensive than these already-expensive butters. In this case the 2# minimum isn’t helping.
If you haven’t tried those other common cultured butters, buy an 8oz chunk for, say, Kerrygold, Plugra, Tillamook for ~$4 & try it out. You’ll know on tasting the first slice of toast, English muffin, or croissant whether you care about the difference. If you do, pick up some Amish on sale; I promise you won’t be disappointed. If not, you spent an extra $1.50ish learning you don’t need to worry about this snooty butter stuff.
One thing’s for sure. If, like the OP, you’re intending to dump the butter into something like *ersatz *Mac-n-Cheez, 100% of whatever benefit it has will be wasted.
Land O Lakes Sweet Cream Salted. Even in baking that calls for unsalted.
You all just reminded me, there was a company that sold handmade butter and cheese at my local farmers market. Their butter was amazing - expensive but worth it. The texture was different from commercial butter, it didn’t spread as well when cold, and it came in vaguely rectangular bricks not the neat perfect squares of commercial butter.
Right after I introduced a friend to it, they vanished from the farmers market, their slot taken over by someone who sold inferior cheese and no butter. I just now found their website and sent a message asking if they’re at any other farmers markets near me. I miss that butter! Their cheese was excellent as well, but it’s their butter I want.
I had a source of truffle butter (white or black), butter was never the same since that source closed.
Big Butter strikes again; stifling innovation, homogenizing and pasteurizing the product, eliminating the competition. MBGA:eek:
make butter great again
Here in Texas we have Falfurrias Butter, a sweet butter packaged in a gold foil wrapper. I was raised on the stuff and it is more flavorful than the Land-O-Lakes I usually see.
Thin slices of Falfurrias sandwiched between a pair of Nabisco Vanilla Waffers, washed down with a cold glass of Bordens Whole Milk — absolute heaven.
Organic Valley Cultured Butter.
But I don’t use it up fast enough since I rarely buy bread. I wonder how it fares if frozen and then thawed before using.
I freeze both conventional and cultured butter for a couple months without apparent problem. Both texture and flavor seem unchanged.
Do remember to move a stick from the freezer to the fridge 24-48 hours before you’re going to need it. There’s not a good way to speed up thawing unless you’re wanting it liquefied.
Ditto. I buy two or three slabs of Plugra at a time and freeze. No problem at all.
Just dunk an unwrapped block in room temperature water to warm it up. Butter is waterproof so it doesn’t affect the butter. Also a good trick for getting fridge temp butter to room temp for baking purposes.