26 April 2012

Butterbeer & Chocolate Frogs (Warner Bros. Studio Tour - The Making of Harry Potter) [By @NLi10]




Yesterday a group of us went on the Harry Potter Studio Tour near Leavesdon. For normal Harry Potter fans there are lots of things to go for, for foodies there are two - Butterbeer & the sweets in the giftshop.

About 2/3rds of the way round there is an outside bit which is the 'back-lot' of the film studio and contains things that you wouldn't expect to see inside and are fairly rain proof. There is also a refreshments stand that sells Butterbeer! If you haven't heard of this then the tour porbably isn't for you - you need to appreciate a bit of the story to get the most out of it. The main characters look forwards to Butterbeer from Hogsmeade when they go on their school trip there. It's never said to be alcoholic in the books, and it certainly isn't here. We bought one to share amongst 4 (it was only £2.95 but I'd seen a few half drunk ones floating around and didn't want to risk it).

Here is me on the actual Knight bus with my Butterbeer! You can't tell this is a giant purple triple-decker bus from this pic, but it is.


And here is the best cropped close-up of the drink I have - it's essentially a 'float'. This is a fizzy drink with vanilla ice-cream on the top. I'm not really sure what the base drink is, it's almost like non-gingery ginger beer, or a less sweet lucozade. It is VERY sweet, and after all 4 people had a small taste I was the only one willing to finish it. In the interests of Science and like Spectre many times before me I finished the beer-like-beverage. I enjoyed it, but I certainly couldn't drink this by the pint! As a welcome drink while wandering around it was perfect, like the Aztec chocolate drink you got when Cadbury's World first opened round the corner from us.



Oh but what of the fabled giftshop! Much has been written about the small section by the door with £150 Snape coats & Dumbledore's Robes for £500 but frankly the rest of the shop is just like a normal London tourist attraction. T-shirts were around £25 but of a very nice quality, and I got a £22 Silk Tie (Slytherin, naturally). One of our 7 Wizards picked up a £7.99 chocolate frog from the shop which is a huge 150g monstrosity and is as close to film authentic as you can realistically expect to get.



It even has a 3D wizard at the bottom of the box - it's Slytherin again! That japester gets everywhere!


I can easily recommend a trip to Harry Potter World for anyone that loved all the books (or films), I avoided all spoilers beforehand and haven't put any here, but suffice to say there is a LOT to look at and as time progresses they are only going to expand this. It's like a little American tourist experience in the Hertfordshire countryside and is half a day well spent.
By Nli10

15 comments:

paulham said...

The frozen "slush" Butterbeers at Universal's Islands of Adventures in Florida are great when the heat gets to you.

Anonymous said...

We had butter beer & other treats at Harry Potter World Florida last month, quite an acquired taste but rather yummy. The whole experience was fab with the rides etc - highly recommended!

Kathryn said...

Just curious - did you try the chocolate frog? How was it?

The one that I bought at the WWOHP was made of horrible, cheap chocolate - perhaps this one's different!

Matt Walton said...

A shame they couldn't come up with something more... buttery. I always imagined it as something like drinkable Worther's Originals, with bubbles. Which would probably be awful. Ho hum.

Oh and the books do mention that butterbeer is alcoholic... but it seems it's more like ready-made shandy, nobody considers it alcoholic except for house elves, who can get drunk on it.

cinabar said...

I imagined it would be more like an ice cream soda - and very very sweet!

Anonymous said...

The chocolate frog from universal studios is delicious. Really really good quality chocolate.

Anonymous said...

The butter beer is like a cream soda

Anonymous said...

I had a butter beer and a CHocolate frog at the studio tour in London VERY YUMMY!!!

cinabar said...

I know NLi10's been, but I must go myself. I also really want to go to the Dr Who exhibition in Cardiff... not sure there is anything foodie there - but hey ho!

Anonymous said...

I'm going to The Making Of Harry Potter tomorrow! I' really excited, hopefully I'll be able to buy a butter beer and some chocolate frogs if they're not too expensive! (Thanks for listing the prices.) I hope it's as good as I imagined it. :D

cinabar said...

Anon - do let us know how you got on - and what you thought of the butterbeer?

Becky said...

Been to both Universal Islands of Adventure HPW and the Studios one, the drinks and the merchandise are exactly the same, as it they are both masterminded by Warner Bros.
The Butterbeer drink tastes like a less sickly cream soda, and if you get it frozen, they pump what looks like frozen condensed milk on top that tastes pretty nice.
There's also a Pumpkin Juice at Universal, that claims to be 'Pumpkin flavoured' fruit juice and they're also selling Pear Ciders for adults in Hogsmeade woohoo!

Anonymous said...

I took my family to this last year. I enjoyed the Butterbeer a lot. The Chocolate Frogs you can get from American Soda if you can't get to Warner Bros!

Anonymous said...

I'm going next week an was wondering if the sold frozen butterbeer at te studio tour??? I'm so excited :)

Anonymous said...

I tried the butterbeer ag wwohp and loved both the regular and frozen, also tried at the studios and loved that too! Going for the 2nd time tomorrow and very excited to have another!! Agree about the bad tasting chocolate used in florida for the frogs - just put it down to american chocolate not being great in general!