Inspired by the award-winning micro pub around the corner from us, The Cap and Collar, and conversations I’ve been having with its proprietor Phil around food and beer pairings, I decided to have a go at whipping some homemade butter with beer for a yeasty, savoury finish.

Phil recommended a flemish trappist beer ‘just in’ called Orval from a single product brewery run by monks. It’s a fantastic beer and worked really well blended into the butter, providing a subtle bready, spicy aroma and flavour.

Although successful for me first time around, the method was quite experimental. In the future I’d like to come back and experiment with steeping the cream in the beer, increasing the salt content and adding a larger quantity of beer to the whipping process.

INGREDIENTS

• 300 ml really good quality cream
• 1 heaped tsp sea salt flakes
• 1/4 cup Orval
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• muslin cloth
• 1 bowl of iced water

Beer Butter Whipped with Orval

1. Add the cream to a food processor and blend steadily for 5-10 minutes as you pass through the stages of whipped cream until you reach a stage where the buttermilk has separated from the butter solids.
2. Strain and reserve the buttermilk. You can chill this as a drink or use in dressings or sauces.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 before placing the butter solids (now whipped to a ball) into your bowl of iced water.
4. With cold hands, gently knead the butter underwater and observe the residual buttermilk being forced from the ball.
5. Drain the water and repeat until the water remains clear as you knead the butter. Be careful to keep the water, butter and your hands as cold as possible during this stage.
6. Flatten out your butter ball on a clean surface until you have a disc about 2cm thick. Sprinkle with the sea salt, roll the whole thing into a sausage and then knead back into a ball.
7. Return the butter to your cleaned food processor before adding the whole milk and beer. Beat hard for about 10 minutes until you have incorporated as much of the liquid as possible. The texture of the butter should be much lighter and the volume should have increased by about 1/3.
8. The butter, now whipped with beer and milk will only keep for 48 hours. Keep at cool room temp. If refrigerating, bring to room temperature before serving.