On Bread (and Butter) Alone
Butter is butter is butter, right? Sweet cream butters are all made with cream (from cows) that's been whipped into a frenzied state in which the fats glob together and the water falls away. So it should all pretty much taste like butter, yes? Well... yes and no, actually.
After reading a piece on Endless Simmer, in which Brendan goes crazy for Kerrygold, I really wanted to know whether I'd be able to detect appreciable differences between butter brands... particularly the "higher end" brands (read: imported).
So, before the wimpy dollar dropped any further against the powerful Euro, I biked to my local Key Food (Greenpoint, Brooklyn). I knew they carried lots of crazy European brands.

Are there differences? You betcha. I can say (or type, rather) this with conviction now, because I just tested nine different butters in rapid succession.
Taking one in the gut (ow!) and another one in the wallet (oh!) for scientific research, I'm publishing my results for you, dear reader.
The Method
Just so you know a little bit about the process here... I made every attempt to purchase the sweet cream/unsalted butter varieties for maximum flavor range. (I'd hoped to use Plugra, a "European-style" US brand as the tenth contestant, but the only type on hand was salted, unfortunately.)
I'm listing the lineup in the random order in which they were sampled. Super-thin slices of a "French" loaf were used as sample-carriers and sparkling mineral water was the palate-cleanser. (And just in case you were wondering, "Yes... I do feel ill now. Thanks for asking.")
The Lineup

1. Lurpak
Weight/Price: (8oz/277g) $3.99
Origin: Denmark
Color: Pale white-yellow
Sweet and creamy with long-lasting pleasant flavor that lingers in the mouth.
Score: B
2. Spomlek
Weight/Price: (7.05oz/200g) $2.99
Origin: Poland
Color: Pale yellow
Creamy. Buttery. Nothing distinguished.
Score: C
3. Delitia (Parmigiano-Reggiano Butter)
Weight/Price: (8oz) $4.99
Origin: Italy
Color: Pale white-yellow
This is a funkier butter flavor. Is it possible it's not as creamy?
Score: B-
4. Mantuanella Farmstead Butter
Weight/Price: (200g) $5.99
Origin: Italy
Color: Pale white-yellow
Again, this one has a funky-farmy flavor. For some reason, I like it slightly better than the Delitia. Maybe a little sweeter?
Score: B
5. Krowka Maslo Wiejskie from Lieberman Dairy
Weight/Price: (200g) $2.99
Origin: Pennsylvania, USA
Color: Pale white-yellow
With a flavor that's fresh, sweet and creamy, I have sudden visions of buttercups for no apparent reason. Not sure if I like this one more than others because it's whipped, so there's a little extra air in it? Maybe it's actually fresher because it's from PA? Whatever the case, I like it.
Score: A-
6. Celles Sur Belle
Weight/Price: (8.82oz/250g) $4.99
Origin: Poitou-Charentes, France
Color: Pale white-yellow
It's... buttery. But it tastes kind of flat. Nothing to write home about. Maybe it's old?
Score: C
7. Elle & Vire
Weight/Price: (200g) $3.99
Origin: France
Color: Pale white-yellow
Wow! Yum! This butter tastes sweet and fresh with crazy high notes that make it taste... lively. I was just wondering if I was experiencing butter fatigue, but WOW! I want to eat the whole packet. I'm a little shocked.
Score: A
8. Land O' Lakes
Weight/Price: (16oz, 453g) $4.29
Origin: USA
Color: Pale white-yellow
Ah, the butter of my youth. It's fine. It tastes pretty flat, actually.
Score: C
9. Kerrygold
Weight/Price: (8oz/227g) $2.50
Origin: Ireland
Color: Yellow
This tastes like it could be a good, creamy butter, but they put salt in it (is that just for the ones they stamp "Imported"?) so most of what I'm tasting is salt. I'm actually pretty disappointed.
Score: C+
The Summary
I know people go crazy for European butters, but some of those brands just don't seem like they're worth the money or the hype, particularly with the dollar in the doldrums these days.
Land O' Lakes is the best dollar value among these samples and it's probably fine for baking. The Pennsylvania brand, Krowka, made a surprisingly strong showing. And I don't know what kind of crack they're putting in the Elle & Vire brand (maybe I just got a very fresh batch?) but I like it. A lot.
I suspect that freshness has a lot to do with quality, so I'd bet that any butter tasted at the source is going to be simply delightful.
Yours in food exploration,

Labels: butter, comparison, testing