In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, there are many popular drinks for wizards, the most famous of which is, of course, butter beer.
If you've been to the Harry Potter theme park, you'll definitely order a butter beer to try. However, most of the theme park customers are underage Ha fans, and it is impossible for the park to actually provide them with alcoholic beverages. So, butter beer is actually a whipped cream soda.
Of course, this is just a modified version of reality, but in the original Harry Potter novel, is butter beer just an "empty name" drink?
J.K. Rowling herself said in an interview that the butter beer she imagined was a milk sugar flavored beer. In this way, butter beer should be a low-grade beer with a sweet taste.
In the sixth Harry Potter film, The Half-Blood Prince, Harry, Ron, and Hermione follow Slughorn to the three broom bars and order three butter beers. Perhaps, it is precisely because of its sweet taste that it will be loved by young wizards.
Let's go back to the original. In The Goblet of Fire, the house-elf Twinkle is "swept out" by the Crouch family, and although she finds a job in the Hogwarts kitchen, she contracts the problem of alcoholism, and she drinks butter beer. There is a description in the novel:
She clutched a bottle of butter beer in her hand, her body swaying slightly on the stool, her eyes staring straight at the fire. As they watched her, she burped heavily. "Twinkle now pours six bottles a day." Dobby whispered to Harry. "Oh, it's not a big beer." Harry said. Dobby shook his head. "It's pretty awesome for house-elves, sir." He said.
Six glasses of butter beer were nothing to Harry, which showed that the strength of butter beer was very low, and six cups were not enough to make people drunk. But for the much smaller elves, they can be drunk.
Well, although the degree of butter beer is very low, it is undeniable that it is wine, not a drink. Supposedly, underage wizards are not allowed to drink. But why in the novel, there are many scenes of wizards drinking butter beer.
In fact, this may have something to do with British tradition. In the 19th century, drinking water was not clean, and brewed beer was safer in comparison. Therefore, people will drink beer instead of water, and young children will drink a small amount.
In modern Britain, although minors under the age of 18 are prohibited from buying alcohol, if it is a parent, children aged 16 and 17 are also allowed to drink some low-grade liquors such as beer, red wine, and cider.
Perhaps under the influence of this tradition, underage wizards drink low-grade butter beer, which is not a big deal in the wizarding world. Of course, if it was a liquor like brandy, it would never be offered to the little wizards. However, the wizarding world does not seem to sell this wine.